How to Survive a Norwegian Winter
by arianedartagnan
Summary: Four years after A Change of Heart, the young mage Marina and her boyfriend Thoren head to Norway to spend the winter holidays with his family. Accompanying them are the mage Ynez and Zoe the Spanish Inquisitor. Unsurprisingly, magical mayhem dogs the party's footsteps. When the four descend on Thoren's sleepy hometown, will they destroy it by accident?
1. Snow

There was something seriously wrong with Norway, I concluded. No place on earth had the right to be so cold.

As our little party fought our way along what Thoren claimed was a "road" (i.e. fresh snow on top of slightly less fresh snow on top of trampled snow on top of what might be a dirt path in summer), icy wind lashed at my aching cheeks and drove (what else?) falling snow into my eyes. Reluctantly, I made the agonizing decision to withdraw one gloved hand from the marginally warmer recesses of my cloak, grasp the edges of my hood, and pinch them shut across the bottom half of my face. Maybe the bit of extra protection would save my nose. If it froze solid and fell off, even my brother Tel, one of the most talented Ars Animae mages in Europe, would have trouble regenerating it.

Peeking around the flapping edges of my hood, I caught a glimpse of my little sister Ynez trudging along miserably behind me. As a testament to her weariness, she'd actually relinquished her divine spear and sword to the pack of belongings atop our shaggy little pony. Now she focused her entire being on hiding within an oversized cloak that trailed on the ground behind her. It was the smallest one that the Cistercian monks of Hovedoya Abbey had been able to excavate from their supplies, given that Ynez was abnormally short and Norwegians abnormally tall. I would have hemmed it before we left Oslo, but Thoren and I had been too busy visiting his old haunts in the city while dodging the Catholics' concerted attempts to convert us. If Ynez wanted a cloak that fit, she could just accept that Thoren swore by Odin and that I vaguely believed in the pagan Greek gods (although my faith had taken a blow after learning that they were just ancient, overpowered mages — not to mention my maternal relatives).

My own cloak, at least, was more or less properly sized, even if it flapped about my ankles in this snowstorm. Gritting my teeth, I irritably kicked aside the hem as it tried to trip me yet again. In a rare moment of accord, Zoe bani Quaesitor, the erstwhile head of the Spanish Inquisition who'd forsaken power and prestige to follow Ynez whithersoever she led, cast me a sympathetic glance. The Seville native pulled her own scarlet wool cloak, emblazoned with a massive gold cross on the back, more tightly about herself.

Meanwhile, Thoren, whose fault this expedition was, acted as if we were strolling through a winter wonderland. Confidently striding ahead, expertly leading the pony, he tilted his head up and scanned the dark skies with a beatific expression. "Ah, home at last," his smile said, and I loathed him for not only enduring but _enjoying_ this bleached-white wasteland. I detested him for leaving us southern Europeans to straggle after him, even if he _were_ breaking a path for us, and even if he _did_ turn every few minutes to check on us. (Although he could just as easily have used Ars Essentiae to blow aside the snow, or Ars Conjunctionis to track our locations, his distaste for unnecessary magic drove him to live life almost like a Sleeper.)

"It's not much further!" he shouted back encouragingly through the piercing wind. "We're almost home!"

"Oh g-g-g-g-good," Ynez chattered back, and promptly stumbled over her own hem.

Zoe swooped in immediately, catching her before she could fall. "Soror Ynez!" she exclaimed anxiously, her hands lingering just a little longer than necessary on my sister's shoulders. "Soror Ynez, are you all right?"

Completely missing the subtext, Ynez smoothed out her rumpled cloak with all the dignity she could muster (i.e., not much) and nodded a gracious thanks. For just a split second, her pride manifested as a gorgeous, iridescent peacock, but the spirit took one look at the blizzard, screeched in dismay, and vanished with a pop. Pretending she hadn't noticed, Ynez commanded Thoren, "Lead on, Magister."

He nodded curtly, turned on his heel, and forged onwards.

For a couple years after we rescued him from Hades, Thoren had tolerated Ynez's barely veiled hostility, but his patience had long since worn out. To me, he'd fumed that he had no intention of wasting any more time explaining himself to someone who clearly refused to listen. He and the Bonisagi had built the Obscura to conceal Athens from the rest of the world because the hordes of refugees were straining the city's resources to the breaking point. Despite House Bjornaer's best efforts, we stared famine in the face every single day. We simply _couldn't_ accept any more immigrants, and that was a fact — whether Ynez liked it or not.

Ynez, who was then entering a most unattractive rebellious teenage phase, obviously did not. She'd regale him with graphic descriptions of how her family fled a Plague outbreak in Seville and traveled all the way to Greece, dying off one by one from disease and exhaustion until only she and her uncle were to left wander the Athenian countryside, starving and freezing just outside the city walls. The trauma of his death was what triggered her Awakening as a mage.

"I am truly sorry for what happened to your family," Thoren responded more than once (until he opted to ignore her instead). "But it was a terrible time, and House Bonisagus did the best we could to save as many people as we could."

To which Ynez would retort sarcastically, "Yeah, like when you invaded the orphanage to take over the Hearth for your little experiments, right?"

After months of fruitless debate, Thoren surprised no one when he gave up trying to reconcile with her.

All my attempts to coax Ynez into at least _attempting_ to understand his logic only provoked screaming fights, the last one of which resulted in her losing control of her emotions entirely and summoning her wrath right in our living room. Bellowing a challenge, the wretched bear exploded into existence, hurled me against a wall, and raked ferocious claws across my chest and face before I could reach my Focus pocketknife. Bleeding all over the already-stained floor, I'd hacked a flame shape directly into the floorboards and flung a fireball at the bear, setting all the furniture ablaze in the process. When the bear burst through a wall of fire and raised a massive paw to rip off my head, I'd lost my temper and shrieked out a string of Enochian to blast Ynez's Pattern. Bad decision. She'd howled in agony and fainted — leaving the bear to maul me half to death and then rampage through the orphanage before Thoren, Zoe, and the rest of our cabal could corner and banish it. Tel and Ghallim, another of our brother-orphans, had both expended so much magic healing Ynez and me that both had suffered terrible Paradox backlashes afterwards. From their hospital beds, they'd compelled Ynez and me to swear formal oaths never ever ever to discuss the Obscura again.

Bedridden and in horrible pain ourselves, we hadn't protested too hard.

I still hadn't decided whether this episode counted towards the Tytalan "Growth through conflict" motto, since as far as I could tell, none of us had experienced any emotional growth from the affair. Normally I might have debated it with Ynez, but we were resolutely Not Talking about That Time We Nearly Killed Each Other. (And yes, our branch of House Tytalus was renowned for level-headed maturity.)

When Thoren invited us to visit his old home for the winter holidays, I'd rather hoped that Ynez would consider it an olive branch — but this horrendous weather could only deepen her resentment. Lovely.

After an eternity on the "road," dark wooden houses began to appear in the distance, emerging and then fading back into the whirling snow. "That's it! We're home!" Thoren called back to us, his face bright with the sort of happiness he projected when he was hunched over his desk, scribbling out calculations for his latest magical engineering project.

I struggled to smile back, but my frozen lips refused to move, and I clutched the edges of my hood even harder, fighting the urge to create a bubble of Ars-Essentiae-warmed air around all of us. _We're almost there,_ I chanted to myself with each step. _Almost there, almost there, almost there._

* * *

At last we reached the edge of town, and cheery yellow squares of light from the windows fell upon the ground before us. Surreptitiously, I dropped back from Thoren a few steps and released my hood. Instantly the wind whipped it back and hammered at my exposed cheeks, but I gritted my teeth and pulled out my pocketknife and a small piece of wood. Concealing my motions under my cloak, I clumsily carved a small candle, casting a minor Ars Essentiae Effect to thaw my lips. When I could speak again, I stumbled forward to tug at Thoren's arm. "Whe-whe-whe-where d-d-d-does your m-m-m-mother live?"

Even if he and his new avatar hadn't yet developed his magical abilities back up to his former Magister Mundi level, Thoren had decades of experience with Ars Vis scans and noted at a glance that I'd indulged in semi-necessary magic. For once, he chose to overlook it. Mostly. Taking my arm to help me through the snow, he warned, "Try not to accumulate too much more Paradox, my heart." Unspoken between us hung all the disastrous backlashes I'd triggered with my willful, rampant use of magic. "There aren't any mages among the townsfolk here…."

Right, and unlike in Athens, where the Sleepers were perfectly blase about mages inadvertently setting marketplaces on fire, the inhabitants of this little rural town might actually panic. (The correct response, of course, was to put out the fire and then bill the offending House for reparations.)

In that context, Thoren's warning made sense. I _had_ used an awful lot of magic lately and was well overdue for a spectacular backlash. "Okay," I agreed. "I'll try."

And I really did mean it. Even though I drew on magic as naturally (and, Thoren would argue, as frequently) as I breathed, he hadn't seen his family in nine years. If it were within my power, I wouldn't complicate his homecoming by destroying his ancestral stead or transforming his mother into a purple three-headed dragon.

In thanks, Thoren gave my arm a quick squeeze and then shouted over the wind to the others, "My mother's house is on the next street!"

"R-r-r-really?" Ynez chattered from behind us.

"Soror Ynez!" exclaimed Zoe in an appalled voice. "Your lips are turning blue! Keep your scarf up!" And the Inquisitor paused in the middle of the street to fuss with Ynez's winter accessories.

As usual, my sister remained perplexingly oblivious to Zoe's feelings. "Th-th-thanks, Soror Zoe."

"We should keep moving," Thoren reminded them. "It's only a little further."

Rounding the next corner, he stopped before a narrow two-story house. All the windows on the ground floor blazed with candlelight, and before we could even approach the front door, a few small, blond heads popped up in the windows with shrieks that pierced the glass. "Grandma! Grandma! Mommy! Uncle Thoren's here!"

 _Uncle_ Thoren? Ynez and I exchanged dumbfounded looks.

"You have _nieces and nephews_?" Ynez asked for both of us.

Unlatching the gate, Thoren coaxed the pony into the front yard. "Yes," he replied matter-of-factly. "I'm one of five children."

One of _five children_? Ynez tilted her head at me inquiringly, but I could only shrug helplessly. Thoren spoke so rarely of his years in Norway that it was almost as if his life had begun in Athens. All I knew was that he'd grown up in a rural town and that he'd been sent as a child to Oslo for his education in House Bonisagus. Why did he speak so rarely of his family? Was it because he was ashamed of us — of _me_ — and didn't want his two worlds to collide?

What had he told his relatives about me? Did they even know I existed?

And here I'd thought that meeting just his mother would be stressful enough. Ambushed by an entire houseful of Thoren's kin, I felt a rush of gratitude for Ynez's and Zoe's solid presence at my back.

Even if Ynez _had_ mauled me with her bear.

While I angsted and Ynez and Zoe froze, the front door flew open and a smiling woman in her late thirties called to us (in accented Latin), "Welcome! Come in! You must be tired!" Her long hair, coiled in elegant braids around her head, was the exact same shade of red-tinted gold as Thoren's.

At the same time, a servant rushed around from the back of the house. Before he could lead the pony away, Ynez scurried over to our packs and fumbled at the straps. As she reverently reclaimed her spear, the emblem of her authority over Hades, and the bone sword forged by Hestia, the Goddess of the Hearth, the servant's eyes widened. On his lips formed the words, nearly carried away by the wind and snow, " _Ynez bani Tytalus_. Odin help us all."

Clutching her divine arsenal like a security blanket, Ynez either didn't or (more likely) pretended that she didn't hear him. Ever since her bear massacred a gaggle of mages during our rather tumultuous coming-of-age, she'd gotten plenty of practice at ignoring terrified looks. Luckily, the blonde woman's entire attention was focused on Thoren, so she didn't even notice the way her servant fled our presence, dragging the stoic little pony behind him.

Thoren didn't notice either. He actually bounded up the steps to hug her hard. "Kari!" he exclaimed. "Mother didn't tell me you'd be here!"

"Ingolf had to go on a trip with the Primus," she said, smiling up at him, eyes glistening with tears. "He's Tertius of House Bjornaer now, did Mother tell you? And I thought that since he was away, and you were coming home, then I'd bring the children so they can meet you — "

Kari, whoever she was, finally saw — _really_ saw — the rest of us. Even though Zoe had protectively arranged herself so that her body partially shielded Ynez from the wind, and Ynez was hunched into as tiny a ball as possible while still standing up, that spear rose tall and proud beside her. You couldn't miss it. It vibrated with unsung dirges and practically demanded homage.

The woman's smile slipped perceptibly in a way that was all too familiar.

Remembering at last that his traveling companions hailed from much more temperate climes, Thoren hastily suggested, "Let's go inside, and then I'll introduce you properly."

"Of — of course." With significantly less enthusiasm than before, Thoren's kinswoman stepped back from the doorway and beckoned us into the house.

In the entryway, we found a row of cloak hooks — plus a weapons rack bearing a couple of swords. Now that was _not_ standard furniture in Athenian homes. Standing on tiptoe, I whispered into Thoren's ear, "Is this normal?"

He'd been staring around his childhood home with an expression I couldn't read. "Hmmm?" he asked absently, glancing away from a walking stick that leaned in the corner by the door. Carved into the dark wood, elegant plaited patterns swirled their way up the staff. A handful of runes around the top spelled out the owner's name, but I'd only just begun to learn Old Norse. "E-I-R-I-K" I managed to piece out at last. Was this Eirik another kinsman he'd never bothered to mention?

"Never mind," I said, feeling a little forlorn.

While Zoe slipped off her Inquisitorial cloak and draped it lovingly on a hook, arranging the luxurious folds of crimson wool so that the golden cross blazed out at us, Ynez hesitated by the rack. On the one hand, local custom obviously required her to surrender her weapons before she entered the living room. On the other hand, the Hadean spear was both the symbol and source of her power over the underworld, and as such an extension of her very being. Did normal etiquette apply to queens of Hades? Reverting to old habits, she cast a pleading look in my direction.

Time to consult the expert then. "Hey, Cly," I said silently, mentally poking my avatar, the Muse of History.

An image formed in my mind of a young woman wearing a laurel crown, seated at a desk and frowning down at a humongous, illuminated codex. At my prod, she jerked up in shock. "Marina!" she scolded. "You know better than to bother me when I'm studying! I just lost my train of thought! I had a marvelous insight about Herodotus' depiction of the Persians, and now it's gone!"

"Herodotus?" I asked, momentarily distracted from Ynez's distress. "I thought you hated him." In fact, during one Paradox backlash, Cly had insisted that his _Historia_ was full of lies and that every extant copy must be burned. _That_ had caused me no end of problems.

Closing the tome with a slightly sheepish air, she muttered, "Yes, but he's _familiar_. He reminds me of home."

Poor Cly! She didn't like the cold any more than I did.

"Er, well, I just have a quick question."

Instantly, hundreds of bookcases popped up like mushrooms behind Cly. "Yes?" she asked alertly, ready to leap up and run to the appropriate section.

"So, you see that weapons rack by the door? Would we cause mortal offense if Ynez _didn't_ leave her spear there?"

"How should I know?" Cly retorted, mortally offended that I'd ask her a question she couldn't answer. "What do I look like, the Muse of Etiquette?"

Apparently her historical knowledge didn't extend to northern cultural practices. Giving Ynez an apologetic grimace, I shrugged slightly. Her Majesty would just have to figure this one out herself.

Playing for time, Ynez shifted the spear to the crook of her arm while she respectfully laid the sword across the rack, arranging the scabbard just so. The woman's eyes, however, remained fixed on the spear, and her lips tightened in the same way that Thoren's did when he was displeased.

Though he'd surely registered his kinswoman's reaction, Thoren chose to ignore it and instead performed the introductions with perfect equanimity. "Karina," he said formally, "this is Prima Ynez Murillo bani Tytalus."

The woman gaped.

Her growth stunted by trauma and poor nutrition, Ynez looked much younger than her eighteen years. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," the tiny Prima proclaimed grandly, overcompensating for her stature with her demeanor.

The woman made a clumsy gesture that looked like a cross between a curtsy, a bow, and a salute. She probably didn't know what the proper etiquette here was either.

Putting an arm around my waist and giving me an affectionate squeeze, Thoren continued, "This is Secunda Marina Cimon bani Tytalus."

Maybe I was over-sensitive, but I could have sworn that the woman's expression sharpened as she observed the position of his arm. Again I wondered just what Thoren had told his family about our relationship — and how many of the rumors about me they believed. Fervently I hoped that they hadn't heard the vicious Athenian one that I'd seduced and then betrayed him to his death. Forcing a nervous smile, I mumbled, "Nice to meet you."

"And you." This time, she didn't attempt to curtsy, bow, or salute.

Half-turning, Thoren gestured at the Inquisitor. "And this is Adepta Maior Zoe Medina bani Quaesitor."

Drawing herself up to full height (which was still half a head shorter than the Norwegian's), Zoe automatically checked the woman's neckline, noted the absence of a crucifix, and exchanged a cool nod with her.

Finally Thoren concluded, "Ynez, Marina, Zoe, this is my younger sister, Karina Eiriksdottir. She's married to Ingolf bani Bjornaer, who's — Tertius now, you said?"

The proud wife nodded vigorously. "Yes, he made Adeptus Maior last year," she boasted. "He's the second-youngest _ever_ in their House."

Off to the side, Ynez and I very studiously made the appropriate awed congratulatory sounds, and very pointedly did not mention that I'd been an Adepta Maior for the past four years, or that Ynez had passed those exams at age fourteen — and had long since achieved the next level of Magistra Scholae. Not in House Bjornaer, true, but still. The Order of Hermes maintained strict standardizations across the Houses.

Appreciating our self-restraint, Thoren gave us a quick, grateful smile.

Amid these introductions, a slender, silver-haired woman emerged from the back of the house and floated across the living room to us, petting the children's heads affectionately in passing. One of the little boys threw his arms around her leg, but she disentangled herself effortlessly with a gentle, reproving smile.

"Mother!" Thoren's entire face lit up the way it had when he first saw his sister, and he released my waist so quickly that I stumbled a little.

Stopping in front of him, Thoren's mother scrutinized first his face and then the rest of him. I saw her clear blue eyes — so much like his — note that he no longer wore the insignia of a Primus of House Bonisagus, although the elaborate knots embroidered on his robes still proclaimed him a Magister Mundi. (Which, at the rate he was relearning magic, would be true again within a year.) With a grin, Thoren held his arms out to the side for inspection. "Would you like me to turn around, Mother?" he teased.

She arched an eyebrow at him. "No," she replied tartly. "I assume the rest of you is just as dirty. Please, all of you, come and sit. You must be exhausted." Casting a faintly amused glance at Ynez, Zoe, and me — and deliberately ignoring the spear — she added, "And cold as well. Come sit by the fire."

Behind us, Karina taunted Thoren, "And you, brother? Are you cold as well? Has Greece made a weakling of you?"

"Hoping _you're_ no longer the weakest one, Kari?" he retorted.

Once Ynez and Zoe were ensconced on the loveseat by the fireplace and I in the armchair next to them, Thoren's mother sat down in a rocking chair facing us and looked at her son expectantly. Glancing around the room, he declined the chair that his sister offered him and instead perched on the side of my armchair. He repeated the introductions, finishing with, "And this is my mother, Signy Ulfsdottir."

I thought her eyes lingered on the pair of us consideringly — we were quite obviously more than just colleagues despite the formality of Thoren's language — but I couldn't decipher her expression. Long ago, Thoren had dated a childhood friend named Inga (now Ynez's lieutenant in Hades), and it had been her death that had driven him to Athens to fight the Plague. By all accounts, Inga was brilliant and loyal, and Ynez trusted her implicitly, and I _knew_ that she and Thoren were just friends now — but I'd declined to meet her anyway.

Now I wondered whether Signy were comparing the two of us and finding me wanting.

Karina broke the awkward silence by pointing out her giggling, half-concealed children. "That's Helga," she said, waving at a girl of about twelve, who blushed and hid behind a book.

Thoren looked astounded. " _Helga_? But she was — " And he gestured helplessly, holding a hand at knee height. "She was _tiny_ the last time I saw her."

"It's been nine years, Thoren," Karina reminded him. "Margrete is married already and living in Trondheim."

" _Married_?"

"Yes, she turned sixteen in June."

 _And_ , I supplied silently, _she's probably not a mage_. We tended to marry late thanks to years of rigorous training.

Thoren, of course, knew all that, but he still looked stunned. "Sixteen," he repeated blankly. "Married."

"The young man in the doorway is Alf," Karina said affectionately, pointing out a chubby four-year-old clinging to the doorframe and sucking his thumb. "That rascal sneaking around behind the sofas is Harald — " a seven-year-old boy's impish face flashed briefly over Ynez's shoulder — "and here's Birgit. You left just after she was born. Remember?"

"I remember," Thoren said, looking dazed still. "I — I just — " He stopped, as if he didn't know how to continue.

"You've been gone for a _very_ long time, Thoren," Signy said quietly, impaling him with her steady gaze.

He actually flushed a little. "Yes."

Thoren — discomfited? What kind of formidable creature could humble the Magister Mundi who had led a small group of mages into Athens, evicted the prominent locals who lived on the Acropolis, and then imposed his vision on the city with no regard for the protests of the democratically elected Assembly? Nervously, I twisted my fingers in my lap, and Ynez darted an incredulous glance at me. Zoe quickly dropped her eyes and bit her lip, probably to hide a smirk. On behalf of Ynez, she too bore a grudge against Thoren.

All the children, however, looked entirely unsurprised that their grandma could quell one of the most famous mages in the world with a single, calm sentence.

Rushing to her brother's defense, Karina dove into what she must have deemed harmless small talk. "So...where were all of you before coming here? Thoren wrote that you'd been delayed?"

Ha. Yes. "Delayed" was certainly one way of putting it. After Ynez informed the Tytalans last spring that we were joining their House whether they liked it or not, their secretary had reluctantly invited us (in miniscule, exaggeratedly messy handwriting) to their autumn conference at the Domus Magna in Normandy. Entirely optional, of course, he hastened to add in much more legible script. In fact, the Tytalan leadership placed the highest value on our efforts to prevent Eurasia from disintegrating into warring fiefdoms ruled by mages who'd amassed such power that the Tapestry itself treated them as gods. No one else in the entire world could fight them on equal footing. Save us, O unconquered ones, from these troubles — and spare us your attendance! (His blandishments, while amusing, even held a kernel of truth. The Queen of Hades _was_ the only person who could imprison the gods in the underworld and so contain their damage.)

Since we'd just routed Poseidon off the Cote d'Azur and earned a little vacation, we ignored the Tytalans' un-invitation and headed for Normandy. As thanks for saving her realm, Queen Aphrodite (yes, the Goddess of Love ruled France) even guaranteed us safe passage to and from the conference and swore not to attack it. So really, with us there, the Domus Magna was the safest stronghold in Europe — not that the Tytalans appreciated it. Their — no, _our_ — meeting over in record time, the four of us split off from the rest of our cabal and set out for Norway, only to receive desperate pleas from Russia en route.

"We had a little trouble along the way," Thoren hedged, as though uncertain how much to tell his Sleeper family.

No stranger to magical shenanigans after years of marriage to a Bjornaer, Thoren's sister raised her eyebrows very meaningfully at the Hadean spear. Ynez had propped it up against the back of the loveseat, and its black point hovered ominously over her head, absorbing all the firelight in its vicinity. "Trouble?" Karina prodded. "We've been hearing the wildest stories from Eastern Europe…."

At that, Birgit squeezed onto the armchair next to her mother, swung her legs vigorously, and proclaimed, "Thyri says that her cousin heard that you were fighting Zeus himself! He burned down Poland, and then you locked him in a tower, and then he flew away on the back of a white swan!"

Uh….and that was how rumors spread.

"Well, not exactly," said Ynez, leaning forward a little and switching into didactic mode. As part of her Prima training, she'd occasionally played schoolmistress to the other orphans. "My predecessor — " she suddenly remembered that a nine-year-old probably didn't know what that meant — "I mean, the mage who ruled Hades before me, locked Zeus up long ago so he can't hurt anyone. He's still locked up," she added quickly before anyone could ask. "We were actually in Russia to talk to Dionysus. He's a spirit of wine."

Which was not how either Tel or I would have described his father, the god of not only wine and grape harvests, but also theater and fertility and religious ecstasy and ritualized insanity.

On a second thought, maybe Ynez's explanation was more age appropriate.

Birgit nodded sagely. "I know who Dionysus is," she pronounced. "Mother has been reading the Greek myths to us."

At that, Cly leaped up so violently from her morose contemplation of Herodotus that I winced. "In which language?" she demanded. "Ancient Greek? Modern Greek? Latin? Old Norse? Marina, you have to find out! I've never seen an Old Norse translation of the Greek myths!"

"Later, Cly," I sighed, massaging my temples. "Let's not scare the nice people."

While I dealt with the overwrought historian, Ynez was explaining, "Because Dionysus is a spirit of wine, and because he's the Tsar of Russia right now, he was making his subjects drink too much. That's bad for them."

Yes, well, that was one way to describe the drunken orgies that disrupted all agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing to the point of causing widespread famine throughout Russia. I rolled my eyes and smirked — and promptly felt Thoren's warning hand clamp down on my shoulder. As if I planned to traumatize his niece!

"So we went to Russia and we talked to him."

Yeah, sure, we _talked_ to Dionysus. If by "talking" Ynez meant flying — yes, literally flying; Ars Essentiae was practically tailor-made for rapid, dramatic transportation — up to the Palace of Facets in Moscow, blasting off the front gate, and charging into the throne room. Unfortunately for us, Ars Conjunctionis wards had long since detected our advance, so as soon as we approached his throne, Dionysus unleashed an army of raving lunatic maenads on us. After we finally subdued them via judicious use of fireballs (Thoren and me) and mind control (Ynez and Zoe), plus not a little savage mauling (the bear), the god of drunken revelry surveyed his scorched hall, philosophically noted the fire damage — and smiled winningly at us. In the most reasonable tone imaginable, he pointed out that Tel would surely wish to discuss unresolved issues with his biological father one day. Was Ynez really so cruel as to deprive him of this opportunity by imprisoning aforementioned biological father in the land of the _dead_?

At the mention of Tel, Ynez's will crumbled and the portal she was opening to Hades shattered. In the end, she contented herself with extracting an oath that he'd permit more _temperate_ drinking among his subjects.

"And then he promised that he won't make people drink so much anymore," Ynez concluded the shortest, most whitewashed historical account ever. Increasingly dismayed by this recital, Cly emitted a pained moan and buried her face in her hands.

Poor Birgit looked equally crushed, albeit by the lack of violence rather than of historical accuracy. "So you didn't use _any_ magic?" she demanded. "There wasn't _any_ fighting _at all_?" Her Norwegian kinsmen, with their weapons rack in the foyer, looked entirely unsurprised by her crestfallen expression.

"Uh, er," stuttered Ynez, caught off guard by the little girl's bloodthirstiness. "Well, you see…."

Conveniently forgetting her own tendency to lobotomize foes with Ars Mentis, Zoe spoke up. "Combat is the last resort when diplomacy fails," the Inquisitor reproved the child sternly.

Correctly understanding the tone if not the vocabulary, Birgit drooped.

From her seat by the fire, Signy pitched her voice to carry across the room. "Harald, that is not a toy."

My head snapped around in time to see the little boy release Zoe's cloak — right before it slipped off the hook and cascaded over him in a waterfall of scarlet and gold. With a frustrated exclamation, Karina scrambled to yank the cloak off him and scold him. With equal alacrity, Zoe dashed over to reclaim her precious cloak and examine it for any stains or tears. Apparently it was unharmed, because she breathed a prayer of thanksgiving and very, very reverently hung it back up. Meanwhile, giggling uncontrollably, the boy skidded across the rug and flung himself behind Thoren's and my armchair.

"Scamp," Thoren scolded, not bothering to hide an affectionate smile.

With a mischievous, exaggeratedly cautious expression that reminded me heartbreakingly of my little brother Sy, Harald peered out from behind the armchair and then grinned impishly at his uncle. When Thoren only shook his head in mock remonstrance, Harald fearlessly climbed into my lap and bounced up and down a few times. "I know who you are," he piped in a high boyish voice.

"You do? And do you know who _you_ are?" I asked him playfully as he rifled through my pockets.

"I'm Haaaaa-rald," he singsonged.

"Thoren," Karina called. "Can you come over here for a minute?"

Cocking his head to a side, Thoren eyed his nephew with misgiving. "Do you mind if I abandon you to this ruffian, my heart?"

"I'll be fine," I assured him ruefully. "I grew up with Sy, remember?"

Perhaps recalling the time the God of Street Urchins showered him with (freshly laundered) petticoats and sheets, Thoren snorted. "Point taken."

As we smiled rather soppily at each other, a flutter at the edge of my vision caught my attention. Harald had pickpocketed one of my quill pens and was pulling the feather apart.

"No, no," I scolded gently, extracting it from his pudgy fingers and holding it out of reach. "Don't do that to the feather, Harald."

Just like Sy, he giggled unrepentantly and reached back into my pockets.

Seeing that I hadn't devoured her brother yet, the twelve-year-old girl, Helga, perched cautiously on a nearby chair with her book, cast a few sidelong glances at me, and at last gathered up her courage to ask tentatively, "Auntie Marina, when are you and Uncle Thoren getting married?"

 _Auntie_? Did I really look that _old_? In the names of all the gods, I was only ten years older than she was!

Also, _married_? Why in the world did everyone _keep_ asking me that? Hadn't Thoren reassured me from the very beginning of our courtship that there was nothing dishonorable about our love for each other, that Norwegians were much more liberal, and that he couldn't understand the conservatism of Athenians? Clearly he should have specified that only he and a select few countrymen felt that way.

"Ummmm," I hedged, looking across the room at Thoren's back and hoping he'd return to rescue me. No such luck. He and his sister had settled down at the dining table and were in the middle of a passionate, whispered conversation in Old Norse. Zoe and Ynez, however, had both overheard The Question and were staring at me intently. Goodness knows they'd asked me often enough when we'd stop living in sin. "Ummm," I muttered, as much to Helga as to them, "maybe someday."

There was no missing the swift, disapproving look that Ynez and Zoe exchanged.

Thoren's mother's face was inscrutable.

"Oh," said Helga, visibly deflating and slouching down in her chair.

I had a sudden memory of my little sister Lil hiding volumes of love poetry behind her Enochian textbooks. Smiling a little at the image, I promised Helga, "If we get married, we'll definitely invite you," and she brightened, just as Lil would have.

Just then I overheard my name from the dining room. Karina and Thoren were discussing me. Listening as hard as I could, I absently carved a small dog (because dogs had good ears) to amplify their voices. "She's so _young_ , Thoren," Karina was saying urgently in Old Norse, and I felt a twinge of smugness that Cly and I had picked up the language so fast. But all self-satisfaction died when I heard more: "They're all so young. And their lifestyle is so...reckless. Are you sure this is what you want?"

Breathlessly I waited for Thoren's response but he, knowing my penchant for abusing Ars Essentiae, replied so softly that I couldn't make out his words. Scowling, I added more detail to the dog's ears and tweaked my Effect to further amplify their conversation. That was as far as I got before Harald snatched the dog from my hands and scuttled out of the room — but it was enough.

"You needn't feel obligated to follow her just because she brought you back from the dead, Brother," Karina was urging.

"I'm not following her because I feel indebted to her or her Prima," Thoren stated calmly. Picking up his mug, he took a sip of mead while framing his reply. "If there were any debts between our Houses, they have long since been cancelled."

She persisted, "You're too old for this! Thoren, you should be settled down in your own home by now. We thought you were just about ready to marry Inga, but then she died and you gallivanted off to Greece. We thought maybe you'd find someone in Athens — " which he _had_! What about _me_? — "but now _this_? Traveling all over Europe and Asia, fighting dangerous gods, with no idea of when it will ever end? Haven't you given enough already? Haven't you sacrificed enough? If she truly loves you, how can she ask this of you?"

In a tight voice, Thoren enunciated, "She didn't have to ask." Immediately I recognized the tense patience that presaged one of his rare outbursts. "It was my choice."

Perhaps, after so many years, his sister had forgotten how to read his tone. "Your choice!" she exclaimed. "What kind of influence have those Athenians had on you? Your choice indeed. This isn't what you want, and I know it, and Mother knows it, and you know it, whether you're willing to admit it to yourself or not. This — this humble nomad isn't you. The Primus of House Bonisagus, the Magister Mundi who commanded dozens of mages and directed magical works for entire city-states — that's the real you! You've forgotten who you are, Thoren."

If I'd hoped for an impassioned defense of me and our entire lifestyle, I was in for disappointment. "Leave it, Sis," was all that Thoren said. "I love her and I'm happy with my life."

From her seat by the fire, their mother stirred, folded her hands in her lap, and didn't utter a single word.

* * *

At least I received some small indication that Signy didn't oppose our relationship when her servant showed us to our rooms on the second floor. Thoren's and my luggage had already been unloaded in the same bedroom, which contained a single bed large enough for two. Next door, Ynez and Zoe shared a bedroom with two narrow beds.

Gods, it was cold away from the fireplace! Even with the shutters firmly closed and the heavy curtains drawn, wintry air pervaded every last crevice in the room, and I could swear that my breath practically froze every time I exhaled. Changing out of my travel clothes and into a nightgown in record time, I dove under the blankets and huddled into a ball, teeth clattering.

"Marina?" Thoren lifted a corner of the blanket and peered in at me. "Are you all right?"

Snatching the blanket out of his hand, I emphatically tucked it under me and balled up even tighter. "No!" I snapped. "I'm not all right! I'm freezing! You did not tell me it would be this cold!"

Fabric rustled as he removed his outerwear. "I did warn you to bring warm clothing," he pointed out, sounding slightly muffled.

"I did!" I cried indignantly. I'd even splurged on a second wool dress in Normandy. "This isn't _normal_ cold! This is the cold you get when a god curses the land and all the inhabitants thereof!"

I thought I heard him smother a chuckle. "It's just winter, Marina. It isn't even a particularly bad winter. Here, you'll be warmer if you let me in." Partially unwrapping me from the blankets, he slid under the covers beside me, stretched out, and sighed contentedly. I had no idea why he wasn't also a chattering ball, but at least he was right about the extra body heat.

Eventually I warmed up enough to uncurl myself and snuggle up against him. "Thoren," I started to say, and then stopped short. Even if he'd detected my eavesdropping earlier (and he almost certainly had), there was no need for spontaneous confessions. After all, _I_ wasn't Catholic.

"Hmmm?" he asked, mostly asleep already.

Thinking quickly, I changed directions. "Thoren, is there a bookstore in town?"

"Yes. I'll take you tomorrow."

Horribly, I woke three times in the middle of the night from sheer coldness. Each time, I lifted the blanket very slightly and peeked out to check on Thoren, but he slumbered as soundly as he would on a fine spring night in Athens.

Each time, I hated him.


	2. More Snow

The next morning, Thoren was up bright and early (or, more precisely given Scandinavian winter night lengths, dark and early). I, however, refused to relinquish our burrow of blankets until his body warmth had dissipated entirely and I woke a second time, shivering furiously. A quick peek out the window showed that the sun hadn't even risen yet, even though the clock claimed that morning was well advanced. In the pre-dawn gloom, bright yellow spots bobbed along the streets — lanterns carried by townspeople accustomed to long wintry nights. Why the first settlers chose such a dreary wasteland was quite beyond me. Cursing both Thoren for bringing me here and myself for agreeing to this visit, I threw on as many layers of undergarments and dresses as humanly possible, transformed myself into a cotton-and-wool sausage, and pelted headlong down the stairs towards the living room. Before I could reach it, though, Thoren's voice drifted from the dining room.

"Marina, we're in here."

But that wasn't where the fireplace was! Still, a guest — especially an unofficial significant other — wasn't free to defrost at her leisure. Reluctantly abandoning the beckoning flames, I detoured to the entryway, grabbed my cloak, and swathed myself in it. Only then did I enter the dining room, where apparently everyone else had just about finished breakfast.

From the head of the table, Signy greeted me with a polite "Good morning, Marina" that was practically drowned out by the children's gleeful cries of "You're la-ate!" and "Grandma always says that if you're late, you don't get to eat!"

Now wouldn't it have been nice if someone — oh, say, Thoren — had warned me about Signy's house rules? Made clumsy by self-consciousness, I dragged out the chair beside him with a horrible screech and half-tumbled into it. "Why didn't you tell me that?" I hissed at him.

He shrugged apologetically and whispered back, "I forgot that Mother is obsessed about everyone eating together. Don't worry — I don't think she'll hold a guest to it."

At Signy's regal nod, a servant silently (and censoriously) offered me a plate and bread roll. Ignoring Harald's and Alf's crestfallen expressions and avoiding Karina's gaze, I began to tear off pieces of bread and butter them.

"So, what are your plans for today?" Signy asked Ynez, treating her as our spokeswoman. (Ynez patted her hair and sat up a little straighter, exuding gravitas.) "Karina plans to take the children skiing as soon as the sun rises. You're welcome to join them."

 _Skiing_? Karina was taking her children outside in this weather? Even Astera, who collected orphans for the sake of binding them to gods who could help her Ascend, never attained that level of cruelty.

While I cast about for a polite rejection, Ynez replied smoothly, "Thank you, but House matters require my attention. Since it was difficult to keep up with them on the road, I have been somewhat remiss in my obligations."

What an excellent diplomatic way of saying absolutely nothing! As far as I knew, no urgent matters — or matters of any kind, really — had arisen on the road. If they had, Ynez the Conscientious would have dealt with them immediately. Not to mention consulted me. I _was_ her Secunda, after all. Seriously, she could just have said "our" attention.

Zoe, however, surprised me by accepting the invitation. "I've heard of this 'skiing.' It does sound like an efficient means of transportation through the snow. Ynez, if our travels often take us up North, we may all want to learn how to ski," she said earnestly.

Ynez considered for a moment. "Yes," she decided. "That does seem wise. Perhaps you can investigate and report this evening?"

Cheeks slightly flushed, Zoe nodded vigorously.

While I was still fumbling for an excuse to avoid any more bonding time with the snow, with which I'd already bonded quite thoroughly on the road, thank you very much, Signy turned to her son. "Thoren, dear, what about you?"

Ever the loyal life-partner-to-whom-I-wasn't-married, he promptly answered, "Marina wanted to visit the bookseller. I assume Bjorn's Books is still in business?"

"Bjorn retired years ago, dear. A newcomer bought his shop and inventory. Odd, I think his name is? He travels an awful lot." A slight downturn of the lips summarized Signy's opinion of the peripatetic lifestyle.

"Helga saw him in the general store yesterday. I can drop off Marina on our way out of town," Karina suggested. "Stay and chat with Mother, Thoren."

"But," he objected, frowning a little, "aren't you leaving right after breakfast? I was planning to wait until it warms up."

Feeling a surge of gratitude for all the little ways in which he showed his love, I opened my mouth to offer to leave with the skiers.

But Karina stymied my expression of self-sacrifice. "You've been away far too long, Thoren. The temperature won't change _that_ much over the course of the day. And the sun will set around 3:00 anyway."

At that, Thoren hesitated, as if casting about for a different excuse, and looked at me inquiringly. In such a situation, what choice did I have? Faking a smile, I uttered the obligatory, "I'll be fine, Thoren. I won't be outside long anyway. You should spend time with your mother."

Signy, who might have spared her son for the length of a bookstore visit, accepted my sacrifice with alacrity. "Yes, dear, and I think it's past time for you to sort through all the trunks you sent here when you moved to Greece. They've been sitting in the attic gathering dust."

Thoren looked strikingly like the way the orphans did when Astera assigned them extra (remedial) Enochian exercises, but he nodded obediently.

* * *

In between carrying Alf through the deeper snowdrifts, shouting at Harald to "get back here this instant," and dragging Birgit away from the general store's display of pocketknives, Karina finally succeeded in dropping me off half a block from the bookstore. "It's just three buildings down," she panted, sweaty despite the freezing — literally freezing — air. (This holiday season, you don't need a cloak; keep yourself warm with child-wrangling!) "I'll see you this afternoon."

"Good luck skiing," I called after Zoe.

The red-cloaked figure stiffened slightly, but didn't deign to respond.

Chuckling, I ran the last half-block over trampled snow and found myself in front of the tiniest, shabbiest, most unimpressive "bookstore" ever. It only qualified as a bookstore because it was an enclosed space and sold books. The interior was dark and cramped, not to mention unheated, and I nearly banged my head on a cloak hook in the miniscule entryway when I turned to stamp the snow from my boots. Seriously, what was the point of having a row of cloak hooks when no one sane would ever frequent this place?

"Don't be so judgmental," Cly reproved. Sitting alertly at her desk, she'd already cut a fresh quill and dipped its tip in her inkwell. Now she poised it over a fresh sheet of parchment. "Maybe the Norse have more compact ways of storing information than papyrus scrolls or codices. Don't stand here scowling! Go find out!"

Rearranging my features into something that wasn't a grimace, I poked my head through a narrow doorway into a maze of tall bookcases lit only by pale grey light from the front window. "Hello?" I called tentatively.

No answer. If this miniature labyrinth had a resident Minotaur, it wasn't hungry.

Shrugging, I walked around the first bookcase and peered at its contents. Contrary to Cly's suggestion, dust-encrusted tomes blinked back sleepily through thick veils of cobwebs. The librarian in me recoiled in disgust. "Apparently the Sleepers here don't read much," I griped.

Cly, bibliophile extraordinaire, agreed completely. "This is sacrilege!" she proclaimed. "Who is this Odd person? How dare he treat books this way and call himself a bookseller?"

Steeling myself, I brushed the dust off a random volume and slid it out, doing my best to sneeze _away_ from the book. _Historia Norwegiæ_ , the title page read. "Oh hey, Cly, they have Latin books!" To myself I added, _Maybe this godsforsaken corner of the uncivilized world is just the slightest bit cultured._

"That's a new book! I've never heard of it! What else is there?" Cly demanded, pressing up against the inside of my skull in her eagerness. Blowing at the dust, I began rattling off titles, all by authors unknown back home. "Marina, Marina, we have to translate these into Greek!"

"Uh, we might have time to translate one of them while we're here, but it's going to be hard when we're back on the road…."

"And that's why I keep telling you and telling you to stay out of the flow of history! If you were a _proper_ historian, you'd have all the time in the world to translate these books, because you wouldn't be running around attacking and getting attacked by the gods themselves!"

Before I could respond to this ancient, pointless argument, a low chuckle interrupted us. As if we'd been bickering out loud — which I was positive we had not — the unhurried, gravelly voice of an old man pointed out, "Ah, but it isn't in the nature of demigods to live quiet lives of contemplation and study, and you knew that from the start, Clio."

Spinning around, I found myself face to face with a wizened old man who wore a patch over one eye. "What — how — " I sputtered.

He swept me a creaky bow that nearly knocked over a waist-high stack of books on the floor. "Odd Hrolfsson at your service, ladies."

Cly bounded out of my head, fuming. "Who are you? What are you?" she demanded. "How do you know who I am? How do you know what _she_ is? And why in the world are your books so dusty?"

"Who am I?" he mused rhetorically, amused by her temper. "If my hotheaded young Tytalan here — is that redundant, I wonder? — weren't so confident that there's nothing worthwhile in this humble village, she might answer that question herself."

I flushed. He was right. Confident that a tiny, rural Sleeper town could hold no surprises, I hadn't bothered to perform any Ars Vis scans. Mentally cursing my hubris, I spat out a few words in Enochian. In a flash, brilliant white light blazed from the old man's skin, blinding me with layers and layers of intricate wards in all nine Artes. Instinctively, I leapt backwards — right into a jagged, waist-high rock. "Oww!" I cried, trying to rub my eyes and my leg at the same time. "Oww! That was completely unnecessary!"

Odin merely smirked at me. "Was it?" he inquired. "And have you been humbled, O daughter of Memory?"

Before I could answer, Cly shoved past me and threw herself at the stone, embracing it like a long-lost sister. " _Marina_ ," she breathed reverently. "Just _look_ at this."

Still rubbing my eyes resentfully and blinking away afterimages, I swept my skirts to the side in a huff and bent over for a closer look. Eons ago, a sculptor had sedulously smoothed a sparkly grey boulder and chiseled out intricate, stylized carvings. A wild border of tangled loops and knots raced around a battlefield, as if preventing the heroes from fighting their way off the very stone.

Well, what did you know? Cly was right about alternative methods of recording information after all, although I wouldn't exactly call this boulder more _compact_.

"Who is that?" I asked Odin curiously, pointing at a huge man brandishing something — I leaned closer and squinted — a _hammer_? — at a young woman wreathed in springtime blossoms.

"There are more gods in the world than yours," the irritating old god reminded me, "however dear they may be."

Dear indeed. Indignant, I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of my divine family, but Cly jumped in. "Who are they? What did they do? When did they live? Do you have books on them?" In her excitement, she actually seized his arm and shook it for emphasis.

Reclaiming his appendage with a tolerant chuckle, he said benevolently, "But of course. If you ladies will follow me?"

Cly promptly traipsed after him, although she couldn't resist casting a final, wistful glance at the stone. I stared after her, shaking my head and hoping she wouldn't insist on carving our next joint composition into a rock. That might take a while, especially if we wanted to spell it so the figures moved —

Wait a minute, the figures _moved_?

On instinct, my hand shot into my pocket. Fingers wrapped around my knife, I glared at the stone. For a long moment, nothing happened, and I was on the verge of blaming sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations when the flower-clad maiden lifted an arm. From her fingertips streamed a bar of smoke. Then she froze again.

Murmuring in Enochian, I brushed the carvings with my fingertip, painstakingly deciphering the interlocked Artes Vis, Conjunctionis, and Materiae Effects woven into the stone. It obviously showed a scene that was unfolding elsewhere —

"Marina!" Cly's voice pierced the dusty air. "Where are you?"

"Coming, coming." Giving the stone one last frown and ascertaining that it hadn't changed again, I obeyed her summons.

Thoren's favorite god and my importunate avatar huddled in front of a shelf of books in Old Norse. "Here's one on the history of the North. It starts with the creation of the world, when there was nothing but Muspell and Niflheim," he intoned, sounding almost like a priest. Breaking off at my approach, he added entirely unnecessarily, "Although young Marina here might call all of Norway Niflheim."

"What's Niflheim?" Cly demanded before I could even frame a retort.

"Why, it's the realm of ice." Odin winked — or blinked — his one eye at me. "As Muspell is the realm of fire. And where the two met in the great void of Ginnungagap, there life began."

"That contradicts history as I know it." Cly eyed him suspiciously, as though suspecting him of corrupting the historical record. We might have problems if she insisted on burning this entire bookstore. (You'd think she and Zoe would be best friends.)

"Who truly knows how the world began?" Odin asked philosophically. "Before humans, before spirits, before writing, before speech itself? As well say that in the beginning there was emptiness and darkness, and into it burst Quintessence, which divided the void into Reality and the Umbra. And Ars Essentiae was the force that melted the frozen reaches..."

There was a hypnotic quality to his words. Before my eyes rose a vision of a barren, colorless wasteland — bleached white snow below, faded grey skies above, and between them black, skeletal trees. Then a white-hot fireball exploded overhead and rained down droplets of golden warmth, and they melted the snow and dissolved the clouds, and under a fresh blue sky, the wizened branches sprouted verdant growth.

"Ars Essentiae," I murmured to myself, barely aware what I was saying. "Yes, Ars Essentiae."

"What — " Cly began to ask Odin sharply, but she was interrupted by a familiar voice from the direction of the door.

"Mariiiiiina!" Shuffling footsteps followed, plus sneezing, and soon a rather dusty Ynez materialized beside us, her spear and sword half-hidden by the folds of her cloak. " _Achoo_!" She sniffled noisily. "Marina, do you have a handker- " Breaking off abruptly, she stared wide-eyed at Odin for one split second before rummaging frantically through her pockets.

The old god snickered. "And what is this?" he asked mockingly. "A dwarf?"

I didn't even need to see Ynez's face to sense an imminent bear attack. Trying to defuse the situation, I donned formality like armor (rather like Thoren, now that I thought about it). "This is my sister, Magistra Scholae and Prima Ynez Murillo bani Tytalus." With a flourish, Ynez yanked out a silver-backed mirror, her Ars Manes Focus, and brandished it like a dagger. Keeping a wary eye on the air around her, I finished, "Ynez, this is Odin."

To my surprise, the god flinched when Ynez tipped up her head to stare directly into his one good eye.

"Oh no, it isn't," she stated flatly. Pounding the butt of the spear on the floor (and raising an appropriately dramatic dust cloud), she commanded, "Take off that ridiculous eyepatch right this instant, Loki."

With a pop, the eyepatch vanished, the wrinkles smoothed into youthful skin, and the hunched figure transformed into a handsome, bright-eyed, young man. With almost-credible meekness, the trickster god inquired, "How did you know, Magistra?"

Ynez's lips curled scornfully. "I grew up with the spirit of street urchins." Tucking the mirror back into her pocket, she continued disdainfully, "Did you really believe you could trick a mistress of Ars Manes? You're a _spirit_ , Loki. From everything I've learned about the Norse pantheon, Odin and the rest of the Æsir are ancient, powerful mages. Just like the ones we've been fighting," she clarified helpfully.

"Ah, yes," he muttered, eyeing her spear and edging backwards. "So I've heard."

"But what are you doing _here_?" I burst out. "Not that this isn't a, umm, very nice little town." _In the middle of nowhere_ , I added silently, knowing he'd hear anyway. "But it seems a little — quiet?"

"Ummmm." In the shadow of the divine spear, he actually attempted to shrink in on himself. "I'm on a meditative retreat?" he suggested hopefully.

"Ha, nice try." I skewered him with my best big-sister glare.

Giving up that tack, he sighed and draped himself dramatically against a bookcase (which, as proof of his incorporeal nature, didn't even wobble). "My family never appreciates the things I do for them. Since Thor has practically cleared Scandinavia of giants, he's gotten bored and flabby and quarrelsome. So I invited Persephone and her child to Sweden and, well." He cocked his head to the side and spread his hands helplessly, as if war and Plague were merely unfortunate side effects of Thor's ennui.

Ynez turned livid with fury. "You _invited_ Persephone here?" she spat out. "All those innocent men, women, and children who have already died in the battles between her and the Æsir, the thousands more who will perish in the epidemic to come — _you_ caused that _deliberately_?" Her fingers went white from clenching the spear shaft.

" _What_ battles between Persephone and the Æsir?" I demanded. No one — especially not my sister and Prima — had mentioned any such battles to me.

"Later, Marina," she said tersely, not taking her eyes off Loki.

"But — "

"Are you my Secunda or not?" she snapped. "I _said_ I'll brief you _later_!"

Once I would have matched her shout for shout in a heartbeat — but the Bear Incident had taught me some modicum of self-restraint (and self-preservation). "Yes, of course, you're right, this isn't the time, it can wait," I babbled, taking a precautionary step backwards. "Uh, calm down, Ynez?"

"Calm down! Calm down? How can you possibly ask me to calm down when this — this — this despicable little spirit thinks he has the right to destroy thousands of lives just because he's _bored_?"

I took another step back, but obviously Loki hadn't gotten the memo about the bear. "Hey, wait a minute," he protested in an injured voice, "I said _Thor_ was getting bored, not me!"

"As if anyone believes that." Ynez's voice was scathing.

Trying again to distract her, I repeated my question to Loki: "You haven't told us yet what you're doing in this town."

"Ummmm…." He stared around himself wildly, as if scouring the bookshelves for inspiration.

"Let me guess," Ynez said flatly, with all the certainty of Death. "This is one of your boltholes. You're in hiding from your family. They're currently occupied by fighting Persephone and her child, but as soon as they drive her away — and they will, out of sheer numbers — they'll comb the northern lands for you. When they find you — and they will, again out of sheer numbers — they will punish you."

"I'll make it right," he whined.

"No, you won't. You can't. Not for those who have died pointless, premature deaths due directly to your actions."

A crafty grin crept over Loki's lips. "But you're the Queen of Death herself," he wheedled. "If these deaths are so pointless, surely you can reverse them."

During the past few years, Ynez had received so many petitions to return loved ones that she didn't even blink. "No," she replied evenly. "That's not how this works. _You_ are the one responsible for this tragedy. _You_ will bear the consequences."

Heaving out a melodramatic sigh worthy of Sy, Loki flung wide his arms. "So be it. Do what you will, O Grand High Splendiferous Majesty. Crucify me, burn me at the stake, banish me to the depths of Tartarus, bind me to a rock with a serpent's venom dripping into my eyes until Ragnarok!"

"No, that would be too kind. You need to go fix this."

" _Fix this_?" For the first time, Loki looked genuinely shocked. "Child, I _start_ wars. I don't end them!"

"Then it's high time you started learning, isn't it?" Ynez asked implacably.

"I — "

"I am the Queen of Hades and the Warden of the Spirits, and I command you to make things right in southern Sweden!"

Although Loki whined for another minute, his protests were clearly _pro forma_ , and his eyes had already gone distant, as if he were thinking furiously about how one rescinded an invitation to death and disease. Warily, Ynez pointed her speartip at him until he swept her an exaggeratedly elaborate bow. "Most Majestic and Magnificent Majesty, it shall be as you desire."

And he vanished.

Leaving me alone in the glacial bookstore with my sister and Prima, who apparently didn't trust me enough in either capacity to apprise me of pivotal developments. Folding my arms across my chest, I stared down at her and asked tightly, "So — when exactly did you find out about Sweden?"

Defiantly, she lifted her chin and met my glare. "I received a message last night," she enunciated.

Hurt swept through me. She'd known for half a day, and she hadn't even _hinted_ at it? "So why didn't you tell me?"

A mulish expression crossed the face of the Most Majestic and Magnificent Majesty. Sounding exactly like the petulant teenager she was, Ynez whined, "You were in bed already." _With Thoren_ , her tone accused.

Well, yes, as I had been for years. Never before had she displayed any compunction about tearing me from my lover's arms in the middle of the night. With more than a little asperity, I pointed out, "You could have knocked — like you always do. Or if you didn't want to disturb my sweet slumber, you could have told me this morning." Then a horrible suspicion flashed through my mind. "Did you tell Zoe already?"

A slight shift in her gaze answered that question.

"Ynez, she's not even in our House!"

"I know perfectly well who's on our roster, thank you very much Marina. But _I_ am the Prima. It is _my_ prerogative to decide when and to whom I divulge sensitive information," she proclaimed so loftily that I nearly whacked her with a book. "Anyway," she groused, "why should I tell you everything all the time? You didn't exactly tell _me_ about Thoren."

Wow — were we really fighting over my relationship with her bete noire while war and disease raged on our very doorstep? Our timing needed serious work. But we _were_ Tytalans, after all, and conflict was our byword.

"That's completely different!" I sputtered, diving headlong into the clash. "That's — that's — my private affair!" She snorted at the poor word choice. "This is _House_ business! I am the Secunda of House Tytalus! And anyway," I reminded her irritably, "I _did_ tell you about Thoren."

"Only after you started dating him!"

"No, if you're going to hold a childish grudge, at least get your timeline straight! I told you _before_ we started dating. I told you when I was writing those essays to convince him to accept me as a student."

"That's not how I remember it," she pouted, in that tone she used when she knew she was wrong but categorically refused to admit it.

Sometimes I let it slide, but not today. Not when I was freezing and grumpy and sleep deprived. "Of the two of us, Ynez, which one has the perfect memory? Which one is the daughter of Memory herself?"

Before I'd even finished speaking, a faint, bear-shaped image shimmered in the air next to her. Fully aware that I was escalating the situation and not caring one single bit, I whipped out my pocketknife. If she wanted a re-match, so be it. For long minutes, we glared straight into each other's eyes, each daring the other to back down. Finally, chest heaving from the effort, Ynez wrestled back her wrath. Slowly, ever so slowly, the bear faded back into the Umbra. Even more slowly, I lowered my pocketknife.

" _Regardless_ ," Ynez hissed, clenching the spear shaft so tightly that the blood drained from her fingers, "the _point_ is that I am the Prima of House Tytalus, and I get to decide what to tell you. And when." Spinning on her booted heel, she flounced out of the shop, slamming the door behind her so hard that dust cascaded from the rafters.

Grabbing the closest volume of Norse myths, I flung a few coins on the counter and stormed out myself.

* * *

The next few days passed with excruciating awkwardness. Feigning deafness and blindness when we crossed paths, Ynez and I resolutely ignored each other. Thoren, who might have reasoned me into a more mature state of mind, barely noticed. Pursuant to Signy's wishes, he closeted himself in the attic or conversed with his mother in her sitting room. While they smiled in a preoccupied manner every time I walked past, neither invited me to join them and I was sensible enough not to try.

At last, bored out of my mind (nearly as bored as Loki pre-Sweden) and desperate to escape the assessing looks that Karina kept slanting my way, I climbed the rickety ladder, pushed up the trapdoor, and poked my head and shoulders into the attic. Through a small window fell a bar of pallid light that cast all the dust motes into high relief. Wooden chests, broken furniture, and old toys loomed on all sides. In their shadow knelt Thoren, holding a small lantern over an open trunk. A wistful, regretful smile flickered over his lips, but it vanished as soon as I sneezed.

"Marina!" he exclaimed, thumping the lid down and setting the lantern on top of it. "What are you doing up here? It's too cold for you."

As if this sudden solicitude after days of neglect weren't suspicious at all. "I was taking a break from studying," I said, clambering awkwardly onto the attic floor. "I thought I'd see what you were up to."

"Oh." He hesitated for just a hair too long. "I left Norway in such a hurry that I didn't sort through all my old, um, papers." He forced a chuckle. "You can't imagine how many reams of problem sets and essays I've gone through in the past few days."

"I could help," I offered, wondering with a pang whether aforementioned papers included notes that he and Inga passed in class. Ynez and I had been too conscientious, but the godlings had slipped one another a library's worth of commentary on how boring Enochian was; how _absolutely fascinating_ Enochian was and hey, Marina, look, we're talking about _class_ ; and — most importantly — when in the world Tel would figure out that Ynez had the hugest crush on him ever. I'd bet that Bonisagi apprentices exchanged equally scintillating epistles.

Thoren, however, displayed less faith in his House's literary output. "Ummm. Doesn't Ynez need you? Aren't you always complaining that she dumps all the logistics in your lap?"  
She most certainly did — and House finances were probably suffering from our estrangement. (Assuming, of course, that she hadn't re-assigned all my duties to Zoe.) "Thoren," I began, debating whether to tell him about our fight. But then I'd have to reveal the battle in Sweden, and he'd feel obligated to cut short this visit so we could aid the Æsir. It wouldn't be fair to tear him from his family again so soon.

"Yes?" he asked, restlessly tapping his fingers on the lid of the trunk.

"I have some free time," I said instead. "It would be fun to see your old homework. I bet you got full points on everything, right?"

"Marina," he temporized. "Look, Marina, I appreciate the offer, but some of these papers are...personal in nature. I'd really prefer to go through them myself."

"What personal papers?" I blurted out. "You mean love letters?"

With a heavy sigh, he ran his hand through his hair. "Marina, we've gone through all of this before. I _did_ have a life before I met you."

So I was right then. I'd caught him in the middle of perusing his billets-doux, and he didn't appreciate the interruption. "I see," I answered, sounding more injured than I'd intended.

Pinching the bridge of his nose in the way he did when he was particularly exhausted and stressed, he appealed, "Marina, this — all of this — " he gestured around the attic, but I guessed he meant his homecoming — "hasn't been — easy for me. I'd be grateful if you gave me some time alone to...process things."

I didn't like it, but I did understand. Gods knew how many nights I'd snuck out of the orphanage to brood in the neighboring olive grove, recalling with my perfect memory the faces of my mother and all my godling siblings, and wishing passionately that I could see them one more time, just one more time. Where were they now? What were they doing? Was Astera content that she'd achieved her centuries'-old dream? Did Sy still pickpocket everyone in sight? Did Helen still give the best hugs? Did Lil still regret sacrificing her human life to Astera's ambition? Did Gordon still lead the mice? Did the godlings even still call themselves the mice?

But even if I'd never see my family again, Thoren at least was back, and right now he was gazing at me with a plea in his eyes. No matter how much we all tended to view the unflappable ex-Primus as impervious to the slings and arrows of outsized ambition (my entire family's, that is), he was still human, and this attic was his olive grove.

I understood.

With a contrite nod, I eased myself back down the ladder. "Of course. I'll leave you to it, then."

I did note that when I shut the trapdoor behind me, he still hadn't reopened the trunk.

* * *

Even if Thoren were oblivious, Zoe most certainly observed the estrangement between Ynez and me. For days, the Inquisitor hovered anxiously (and irritatingly), as if torn between ecstasy at having Ynez to herself, and worry at the damage to our sisterly bonds. Eventually I lost my patience with her clumsy attempts to play confessor. Plonking myself and my books in a corner of the living room, I composed an elegy for summer, my Focus for an Ars Fati ritual to make everyone just happen to miss seeing me. Almost immediately, though, I discovered that the heat didn't extend very far from the fireplace and that any bodies (e.g. other humans or pieces of furniture) between me and the fire reduced the warmth dramatically. Still, I couldn't just plant myself directly in front it, because the logs needed constant tending and all the Ars Fati in the world wouldn't keep a servant from noticing if she tripped right over me.

It was then, as I desperately rubbed my icy hands, that Loki's story about the creation of the world came to the rescue. Remembering the vision of Ars Essentiae melting a frozen Reality, I carved a slender flame and funneled heat from the fireplace towards me, draping it around my shoulders like a blanket. Much better. I'd accrue more Paradox from the Effect, of course, but better a backlash than hypothermia.

In this sullen mood, I was huddled over the book of Norse myths one morning when I overheard Ynez speaking with Signy and Karina. "Soror Zoe and I need to go to confession. Is there a church nearby?"

The Norwegians exchanged long looks before Signy responded slowly, "No, we do not have one. The next town over does, though."

Zoe's lips pressed together tightly, and it was her turn to exchange a very significant look with Ynez that boded ill for paganism in the North. Perhaps she'd write to House Quaesitor and urge them to bring the fires of the Inquisition. If they warmed this Niflheim, I'd even support the endeavor.

"It's rather far on foot, especially in this snow," Karina said doubtfully. "We could lend you skis, but I'm not sure Ynez knows how to use them?"

Ynez gave a little shake of her head. Both of us knew that I could easily summon a wind disk for them. But if she didn't ask, I certainly wasn't going to offer.

"Thoren, perhaps you should guide them — " Signy began, but he cut her off with a firm shake of the head.

"Mother, Ynez and Zoe are mages," he reminded her. "They're perfectly capable of handling themselves."

Eyeing Ynez dubiously, Signy resigned herself to her son's judgment. "Very well then. Just follow the main road east, and keep going until you come to a fork. There should be a runestone to mark the path. Make sure you turn right there. Then keep going until you pass a large farmhouse with a red barn…." She rambled on in this imprecise vein for a few minutes, bewildering the two churchgoers with a deluge of well-intentioned details. At last she concluded, "And the church will be on the edge of the forest. You can't miss it."

Zoe looked as if she wanted badly to retort that maybe she couldn't miss the church once she was standing in front of it — but reaching that spot would be the problem.

"Yes, thank you," said Ynez with a determined lift of her chin. To the obvious delight of the children, her peacock appeared on the floor and strutted around the dining table. "We should have no trouble."

Ever since she'd led us straight into a dark swamp while hunting Apollo, the god of _light_ , we'd known better than to trust her sense of direction. From my vantage point, I stared at her incredulously. Was she _really_ too proud to ask me to map the path via Ars Conjunctionis?

Yes, yes she was. Without a backward glance, her peacock perched defiantly on her shoulder, she strode out the door.

* * *

Although I tried valiantly to lose myself in Asgard again, nagging worries kept jerking me back into the real world. Just how far away was this church? How long would it take Ynez and Zoe to walk there? Theoretically, either of them could summon wind disks, but they'd never bothered to practice the Effect because I was the Ars Essentiae specialist. Anyway, even if they succeeded, neither knew Ars Conjunctionis or even Ars Fati, meaning that if they got lost, they'd never find the road again. But then again, if they _did_ get lost, they shouldn't actually freeze to death, because they could warm themselves magically...except if they botched. Or simply failed the Effect. Or fell into a ravine and knocked themselves out so they couldn't even attempt the Effect. Or —

By this time I'd worked myself into a panic. Pelting upstairs to my bedroom, I nearly tore a sheet of parchment in half as I yanked it out of my pack. Casting it onto the bed, I rummaged frantically through my satchel, tossing wood carvings all over the floor, until I extracted a quill. Then I sat down on the bed, inhaled and exhaled deeply to steady my hands (my breath froze instantly), and began to write. At Cly's urging, I'd adopted calligraphy as a Focus for Ars Conjunctionis so I could copy manuscripts _while_ performing Effects. This particular page was part of Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ , which I was reproducing from memory for Ynez as a Christmas gift. (I'd conceived of the project months ago, after she spent an entire evening sighing wistfully over Tel and wondering how long his relationship with Verrus would last.)

As I painstakingly inscribed lines of poetry that educated women about the complexities of romantic love, a vast, white landscape filled my vision. In the shadow of towering mountains, two tiny figures laboriously broke a path through knee-high snow. I didn't even need to zoom in to know that the taller one walked in front while the shorter one leaned into a spear like a walking stick. Scanning ahead, I located the church, a surprisingly elegant wooden structure with golden-brown walls and many dark, sharply-sloped roofs. The door was adorned with an intricate carving in the same style as Loki's stone, although this one depicted a man ramming his sword upward through a dragon's belly while the beast arched back and bellowed in agony.

"One of the saints?" I asked Cly.

Without looking up from a book, she shook her head disapprovingly. "You need to read faster, Marina. That's Sigurd, from the _Saga of the Volsungs_ , slaying the dragon Fafnir." Growing more animated, she lectured, "Remember that epic poem we read in the Holy Roman Empire while we were negotiating with Ares? The _Nibelungenlied_? They're basically two versions of the same story — "

While she rattled on with a scholarly comparison of the sources, I explored the interior of the church. Elegant elongated animals appeared out of and merged back into the omnipresent carved plaits that wove their way around archways. Loathe as I was to admit that such a bleak wasteland could hold any beauty, I had to confess, "Maybe we should have gone with them."

Since I'd set up the Effect already anyway, I figured that I might as well spend the afternoon copying the _Ars Amatoria_ and analyzing historic architecture. It most certainly had nothing to do with checking on Ynez periodically.

To my relief, she and Zoe reached the church around noon and began their confessions, leaving them plenty of time to return before sundown, especially if they followed their own footsteps back. A couple hours later, though, I realized with a start that the light was dying but they still hadn't returned. Quickly I scried for them again — only to discover that they'd followed the wrong set of tracks and turned off goodness-knew-where. As they fought their way through snow drifts, every step took them further from the village.

Nightfall loomed. This was no time for grudges.

Setting down my quill, I ran some hasty calculations. Yes, I could summon a wind disk from here and direct it to pick them up and carry them back. But the further I was from them, the harder the Effect would be to control and maintain. Far safer would be flying to them myself. Of course, that would force me to back down and acknowledge Ynez's existence first — but as soon as a wind disk popped up next to her, she'd know that I'd caved in anyway. Well, it just couldn't be helped.

Whittling a small cloud, leaving the pages of the _Ars Amatoria_ scattered all over the bed, I leaped out the window onto a wind disk. It wasn't even until I was sailing over the heads of awed Sleepers that I remembered Thoren's warning about Paradox backlashes.


	3. Ice

Guided by Ars Conjunctionis, I quickly spotted my rescuees and swooped down to hover at Zoe's shoulder level. As soon as she glimpsed me out of the corner of her eye, Ynez pressed her lips into a grim line, quite pointedly turned her back, and forged onward. (Said forging might have impressed me more if it hadn't been quite so slow. Even Sy's best tortoise impersonation moved faster.)

Ignoring her just as emphatically, I asked her companion, "Want a ride?"

Before Zoe could even open her mouth, Ynez tossed back defiantly over her shoulder, "No. We're doing just fine." Right then, the peacock manifested between her legs, with the predictably lamentable effect on her grandeur.

Folding my arms across my chest, I coolly watched them flail about in a tangle of woolen skirts and turquoise feathers and then tumble into a snowbank. "You're going the wrong way, sister dear," I observed after a miniature avalanche finally silenced the squawking.

"Marina!" Zoe scolded. "That is _not_ the way to show sisterly love!" Ever the heroine of the hour, she waded through the snow, grabbed Ynez around the waist, and heaved. Out popped my sister, followed by an extremely indignant, frosty-white peacock.

I glowered right back at all three of them. "Are you coming or not?"

That was as far as I got before the peacock attacked.

"No!" Ynez shouted over its screeching. "I _told_ you we're doing just _fine_!"

Waving my arms and swiping at the bird as it pecked savagely at my eyes, I yelled back, "You are _so_ not doing just fine! You are so incredibly lost!"

In the end, Zoe had to lay a restraining hand on Ynez's shoulder. "Forbearance is a virtue," she soothed. "We must forgive those who trespass against us." Personally, I didn't think the Church had sibling spats in mind when it formulated that particular doctrine, but I was too busy fending off Pride Run Amok to object. Zoe's next sentence proved that she was on my side anyway. "Soror Ynez," she pointed out gently, "the sun is already setting. I think we should accept Marina's offer."

In an abrupt whirl, the peacock darted back to Ynez, perched on her left arm (the one holding the spear), and glared at me venomously with its beady little eyes. Unimpressed, I scowled fiercely back down at it.

Torn between pride on the one hand (literally) and Zoe on the other, Ynez dithered and wasted more precious daylight. Finally she said, "You should ride back with her, Soror Zoe. I'm in the mood for a walk."

Alone and lost in the woods in the snow in the middle of winter in _Norway_?

"Don't be ridi- " I started to scold, but Zoe hastily cut me off. "Soror Ynez, if you wish to walk, then I will accompany you. The temperature will continue to drop as night falls, though." As if to underscore her argument, a gust of wind threw open her crimson cloak, and she shivered dramatically before she could wrap the edges around herself again.

"Oh, fine!" For the sake of her church sister, Ynez surrendered with very poor grace.

Turning her head so only I could see, Zoe gave me the tiniest wink.

Scowling ferociously, Ynez grabbed fistfuls of cloak and skirts, yanked them away from her ankles, and pushed through the snow to the wind disk. In a slight concession to practicality, I lowered it by a foot so Zoe could boost her up. As if to prove that windchill didn't bother her at all, Ynez defiantly planted herself right at the front with her legs dangling off the edge, her spear across her knees, and one arm draped over her peacock. With a mental shrug, I sat down directly behind her as the wind disk zoomed off. If she wanted to be a windbreak, she could be a windbreak. I wasn't going to complain.

"What made you come for us?" Zoe asked curiously, huddling down beside me.

Without looking at her, I admitted, "I scried on you. I knew how long the return trip should take."

Gratitude warred with consternation on Zoe's face. "Marina, confessions are supposed to be private — "

"You honestly think I have _time_ to eavesdrop on your sob stories?"

Rather than squabble with her pagan savior, Zoe grudgingly composed herself in the name of Christian forbearance. "I appreciate your concern," she proclaimed stiffly. "I was beginning to fear that Soror Ynez would catch her death of a cold."

Speaking of disease — "So what _was_ the report from Sweden?" I blurted out, curiosity overwhelming pride.

Zoe's eyes widened, as if she couldn't believe that Ynez hadn't apprised me of such weighty matters. Well, that made two of us. "Uh," she floundered, dropping the stern demeanor and looking our age for a moment. "Perhaps...that is for your Prima to say."

"I assume that if she knows, and you know, and everyone who lives in the entire southern half of Sweden knows, then it can't exactly be classified. So just tell me!"

Still Zoe hesitated, obviously wondering if Ynez had withheld the information for a reason. "Well," she hedged, "it was a letter from the Domus Magna in Normandy. They'd received reports that Persephone and the Plague had breached the Æsir's defenses."

"Then why didn't we go immediately? Why aren't we on our way now?"

"The Primus Magnus believed that Odin and his cabal had things well in hand. Soror Ynez elected to monitor the situation for the time being."

Hurt swept through me. There was nothing sensitive in that report, nothing that merited such secrecy. "So why didn't she tell me?" I pressed.

All of a sudden, a derelict barn below us acquired magnetic attraction for Zoe. "Did we pass that on the way to church?" she inquired, pretending to wrack her memory. "I'm not sure I remember it…."

I refused to let her dodge my question so easily. "No, you don't remember it because you didn't come this way."

A twist of Zoe's mouth accused, _Creepy voyeur_.

Creepy, _lifesaving_ voyeur. "So what was so secret about that report?" I reiterated.

"Oh, well, you know, we thought — that is, Soror Ynez thought — "

No longer bothering to hide her eavesdropping, Ynez yelled back over her shoulder, "I thought that if you knew, it would ruin your visit with Thoren's family!"

That broke my concentration.

With a lurch, the wind disk plummeted towards the treetops. Ynez shrieked and clutched the edge — and Zoe shrieked and clutched Ynez — before I could wrestle the Effect back under control. Once we were gliding along again, I squeaked, "You didn't tell me because you didn't want to ruin my _vacation_?"

Without turning, she squared her shoulders. "Yes."

And here I'd been questioning her faith in me! All that came to mind was a small "Oh."

"Yes," Zoe said. "Quite."

And that basically summed everything up.

Several minutes later, I mumbled, "That was — sweet of you." Then, in an even lower voice — "I'm sorry about losing my temper in the bookstore."

Equally discomfited, Ynez admitted to the air in front of her, "You were right. As Secunda, you had the right to know." A chagrined silence, and then her true confession: "I — I guess I was mad about Thoren."

"Mmm." Almost not wanting to know the answer, I asked tentatively, "Do you still hate him that much?"

A flutter of her cloak suggested a shrug (or possibly just an extra-strong gust of wind). "No, not really, I guess. He did what he had to do. And goodness knows we've accrued our share of collateral damage these past few years. But it's hard when it's personal, you know?"

Yes, I did know. Eight years ago, I'd been playing in the orphanage yard when Ghallim and Avaris carried in a tiny, skeletal girl, too weak even to cry, and I'd never forgotten the haunted look in her eyes. "I'm sorry," I repeated sincerely. "I never planned to get involved with Thoren. In any way." In fact, on her behalf I'd shunned him for years. "It just — sort of happened. And — and — he really is a good man, Ynez."

The wind carried her sigh to my ears. "I know," she muttered in such a low voice that I barely heard it. "I know." Meeting my eyes for the first time in days, she proffered a rueful half-smile. "Give me a bit more time, Marina. Or what is it he always calls you? ' _Hjartað mitt._ ' Is that a nickname or something? Should I call you that too?"

It meant "my heart," and he'd first used it that as he lay dying deep in the caves of the Hearth. "Umm, no. You really shouldn't call me that." Giddy with relief, I snickered, "Unless you want people to accuse us of incest."

"Oh!" Ynez turned as scarlet as Zoe's cloak before bursting into laughter. "Oh, no, that really wouldn't be appropriate!"

At soon as she scooted back to sit beside me, the wind blasted into my face and practically ripped my hood off. "To be honest, I'm not sure I like Thoren much anymore either!" I joked, raising my voice over the howl. "What madman invites people to visit Norway in the middle of winter?"

Clutching at her own hood, Ynez shouted back more practically, "Can you bend up the front of the wind disk? So the wind doesn't hit us head-on?"

"I can do better!" With stiff, clumsy fingers, I carved a fireplace so I could raise a bubble of warm air around the three of us.

Except —

Except I botched.

A perfect sphere of warm air enveloped the wind disk and thawed the three of us — and then exploded outward. Before I had time to react, its impact battered the trees on all sides, whipped their trunks back and forth, and then hurtled on and on across the countryside. As far as the eye could see, packed snow softened and snow banks collapsed. Little pattering noises surrounded us as water poured off branches to pool on the ground, which rapidly turned into slush.

"Oh no," I wailed, hurling the carving away from me. (It landed with a loud splat.) "Oh no, oh no, oh no! Ynez, help! What do I do now?"

"I — I don't know," she said blankly. "Use Ars Essentiae to cool down the air again? No, no, that wouldn't fix the snow…."

Before we could make everything even worse, Zoe yelled at us, "It's a Paradox backlash! The first lesson we learn in House Quaesitor is that using magic on a Paradox backlash only makes it worse! The best thing — the _only_ thing — we can do now is wait it out."

Much as I hated to admit it, she was absolutely correct. I hated backlashes precisely because of how helpless they made me feel. "Maybe — maybe it won't get too much worse?" I pleaded, not believing it for an instant. "Maybe it's just this patch of forest? Who cares if there's snow or water in the middle of a forest, right? Maybe no one else will even notice?"

Neither Ynez nor Zoe responded.

As the wind disk carried us to the edge of town, we saw that the hot air had beaten us home, and the snow on all the rooftops was dissolving into rivulets that cascaded off the eaves. Townspeople had rushed from their houses to gape around them, completely confused by the arrival of springtime in December. As we sailed by overhead, they pointed and shouted.

Forget Persephone and the Plague. _Thoren_ was going to kill me.

"Don't worry, I won't let him kill you," Ynez said firmly, and I realized that I'd spoken aloud. "Anyway, he's used to your backlashes by now."

You could anticipate something without necessarily liking it, though. Before I even identified Signy's roof, I spotted Thoren standing in the middle of the front yard, arms folded across his chest, scowling ferociously up at us. "Marina!" he bellowed. "Come down here right this instant!"

A craven urge to just keep flying until we reached Athens struck me, but Ynez nodded grimly at me, and I swallowed hard and reluctantly lowered the disk to waist height (Ynez's waist height) to let the others off first. Then I took my time unraveling the Effect before I turned to face him.

"What have you done?" Thoren roared, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. "And don't even try to tell me that you had nothing to do with it. This just reeks of your Resonance!"

Now that he mentioned it, the snow wasn't melting uniformly but in patches reminiscent of ink splotches.

"I — I — " I stammered. "It was cold and windy and — and — I just wanted to warm us — "

"With magic? How many times must I tell you, Marina, that magic is serious! It's not something you toy with for party tricks!"

Bravely, Ynez stepped up beside me and started to declare, "Magister, Zoe and I got lost coming back from church. Marina came to rescue us — "

"No," he cut her off flatly. "Ynez, there is a time and place for you to pull rank, but _this is not it_. This is not House Tytalus business. If you and Zoe will excuse me, I am having a private discussion with my _girlfriend_."

As private a discussion as anyone could have while screaming his head off in front of half the village! Personally, I thought that rescuing cabalmates, including my Prima, counted as official business, not to mention a perfectly reasonable use of Ars Essentiae. Ynez looked as if she were about to make just that argument, but Zoe seized her arm and marched her up the steps and into the house.

"Marina," Thoren said, straining to control his anger, "when we arrived, I made one request of you. One. Which was to refrain from abusing magic. You knew this town is full of Sleepers. And yet you _flew_ through it with no regard for how many people saw you!"

I couldn't resist muttering, "Yeah, like all fifty of them."

"One Sleeper witness is enough to cost extra Paradox," he said tightly. "Or did that reckless Criamoni who called herself your mother never teach you that?"

"Of course she did!" I defended Astera hotly. It was I who had chosen to follow in her footsteps and ignore the price.

"Then you have no excuse for your selfish disregard for everyone around you! Just look what you've done!" he shouted, losing his temper entirely and gesturing at the water raining from the eaves and gushing down the sides of the street. "Marina, you _know_ how I feel about unnecessary magic! Yet you've been abusing Artes Essentiae, Vis, Fati, and Conjunctionis ever since we arrived." He ticked them off without hesitation. "No, don't try to deny it. I _know_ every Effect you've done. I _know_ how much Paradox you've been accumulating. And yet you kept going until you triggered a backlash right in the middle of _my hometown_! Are you happy now?"

By now we'd attracted a small audience of neighbors. Silently they congregated just outside the fence, staring at us with a mixture of censure and awe.

I didn't even know what to say. _It was Loki's idea_ , crossed my mind, but I resolutely bit it back. After all, the trickster only planted the suggestion in my head. It was I who had chosen to implement it. "I — I — "

At last, Karina flew out the front door and sloshed across the yard to us. Grabbing Thoren's arm, she hissed urgently, "Not in public, Thoren! If you want to yell at your — at Marina, do it in private."

"Oh, I'm finished here," he replied coldly, yanking his arm free of her grasp. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find the chieftain to report this." Without looking at me, he stalked off down the street, the crowd parting like the Red Sea to let him pass.

Frantically, I whipped my head back and forth between his stiff back and Karina's grim face, wondering if I should run after him to beg for forgiveness, or stay and justify myself to his sister, who already deemed me too young and too reckless. In the end, faced with an unbearable choice, I took the third option.

* * *

If Paradox wanted to plunge us into spring months early, it should at least do the requisite spring cleaning. Odd's Books remained just as dusty, cobwebby, and dark as I'd left it. Clambering onto a low bookcase by the front window, I peeked out miserably at the glistening street. Yes, my backlash had melted all the snow, but as soon as the heat bubble passed, the ambient temperature plummeted again — and now all that water was freezing into ice. Cries of alarm pierced the window as townspeople desperately skidded their way about their errands.

"When do you think it will snow again?" "It would take a really strong storm to blanket all this ice — " "Look out!"

A thud, a shriek, and a heartrending wail. "My arm!"

"Get a healer! I can see the bone — "

Another scream and thump as a woman instinctively turned to run, lost her balance on the glassy street, and toppled over.

"Her leg — " "Careful, don't jostle it!" "Get the healer! Go _carefully_!"

And more shouts, blending into one loud roar in my ears. It was my fault. All of this was my fault. And it was — oh gods — Karina and the children had mentioned Yule, hadn't they? The Northerners' great midwinter festival, during which all feasted and made merry? The one I'd just ruined for everyone in this swathe of Norway? It would be so much easier if, as I'd facetiously suggested, one of the gods had really cursed the land! Then I could perform a ritual to shunt the ice elsewhere or even summon a blizzard, but right now I couldn't — shouldn't — do a single thing. Detesting every second of my useless existence, I wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my face in my skirt, beseeching all the gods I no longer believed in to erase this backlash.

Not until the last, cobalt glow had faded from the sky did I remember that enhancing my dark vision would exemplify the foolhardiness that had caused all this trouble in the first place. Working purely by touch, I scoured the cabinets for a lamp, a candle, anything. As a spirit, Loki dispensed with such prosaic concerns, so the only light source available was a half-used candle, probably discarded by the previous owner. Lighting the precious stub via entirely mundane means took an eternity, but I persisted until a tiny flame flickered to life.

Cupping it in my hands, I paced restlessly through the maze of bookcases and, as a testament to my agitation, practically crashed into Loki's magical stone. In the wavering candlelight, the tangled loops galloped around the border, the flower-decked woman shot smoke from her fingertips, the tall man lifted his hand towards a hammer that arched through the sky like a comet — wait a minute.

The scene had changed again.

Sinking to my knees in front of the stone, I stared at it intently, counting off the seconds. "One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…."

A hundred twenty "thousands" later, the figures moved. The smoke — which could only be the Plague — blasted dozens of tentacles straight at Thor, while an elderly, one-eyed man cocked back his spear to hurl at Persephone. Then they all froze again.

Almost certainly the stone showed snapshots of the battle in southern Sweden. If only I dared risk an Ars Vis scan to confirm it! (Although, if I dared risk any magic, I could cut out Loki-the-middleman and scry on the battlefield myself.)

Two more minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Then stone grated and contorted, and a familiar man materialized on the battlefield. In one hand he gripped a spear that looked exactly like Ynez's, and by his side a humongous triple-headed hound bayed from all three throats. That man — it couldn't be — Thanos? No, no, absolutely not. For all the respect Ynez showed the Dowager King of Hades, she'd never loan him her regalia.

Loki, then, "fixing" things?

The stone shifted again. Cloak flaring dramatically behind him, the trickster stood poised between the Æsir and Persephone and held out a hand to Thanos' erstwhile lover.

Another interminable wait.

Persephone's hand rose to clasp Loki's. About their figures twined the Plague. In the background, Thor and Odin watched warily, hammer and spear at the ready.

"It's impressive, isn't it?"

Ynez's voice came from behind me, making me jump. So engrossed was I that I'd completely missed her footsteps. Sinking down beside me and spreading her skirts decorously over her feet, she set a lantern at the foot of the stone. From behind, a soft, feathery embrace enveloped us, and I jerked around to find Ynez's love, an oversized white swan, warming us with its wings. Looking slightly chagrined by this very open display of affection, my sister feigned utter fascination with the carvings.

Even less inclined than she to soppy scenes of sororal devotion, I mimicked her scrutiny. "Are they true?"

She nodded, rummaging around in her pocket. "Yes, albeit delayed. I suspect that Loki relays the signal through the Umbra, which retards the timing." After four years with Thoren, technical jargon had invaded even Ynez's vocabulary. "The events depicted on the stone happened yesterday." She extended her olive branch — an opened letter, its cracked seal imprinted with the stag of House Tytalus. "Here. This just arrived from the Domus Magna."

Nodding my thanks, I scanned its contents. In his angular, jabbing script, the Primus Magnus had written that right at the climax of the battle, just as Thor swung his hammer towards Persephone's head and she sprayed Plague at him, Thanos burst out of thin air in an explosion that blasted all the gods off their feet. Approaching a dazed Persephone, he helped her up and, according to eyewitnesses, whispered "tenderly" in her ear. Whatever he said worked. Hand in hand, with the Plague darting around them like an excited toddler, they flew (literally) from the battlefield. I supposed that if Loki were willing to transform into a mare to lure off some poor giant's stallion, he wouldn't scruple to impersonate Thanos.

There was only one problem: Astera had stolen Thanos' original avatar and all his powers — and Persephone knew it. "Wait," I objected, frowning. "Wasn't she suspicious when he showed up decked out in full Hadean panoply?"

Ynez shrugged. "Who knows? It's Loki. I'm sure he invented a perfectly plausible story for how Thanos regained control of the underworld from a mere eighteen-year-old girl." She rolled her eyes elaborately, the epitome of an ordinary eighteen-year-old girl. "Anyway, I thought you'd want to know."

The postscript at the end of the letter caught my eye. The trio was last seen flying towards Denmark. "They went _south_?"

"It appears to be the case." Ynez's lips pursed into a thin line as we processed the implications.

"Great." Leave it to Loki to lead Persephone and the Plague off my doorstep and back towards my home. Still, south meant away from Norway and this icy nightmare of my own creation. "So — we need to go intercept them, right?" I couldn't quite keep the hopefulness out of my voice, and Ynez frowned at me, looking remarkably like Zoe.

"Are you trying to run away?" she asked sternly, sounding like Thoren now.

"Erm, no?" I scrambled for an excuse. "It's just that it's kind of my fault that Persephone escaped Hades in the first place, so I feel a responsibility to, um, mitigate her damage…." I trailed off. Why bother lying to my sister?

"Look," she said more gently, and the swan held us tighter, "obviously I don't have any personal experience with romance — " I snorted — "but I did grow up in a very _very_ large family." Her voice faltered for a moment before she continued determinedly, "Families are complicated, especially when you include the in-laws. Not everyone will get along all the time. Not everyone will even like everyone else. Um. I guess what I'm trying to say is that running away from Thoren's family won't help."

I sighed. I did know that — in theory, anyway — and I refrained from reminding her that I also had a "very _very_ large" (and very very _very_ complicated) family. But she was right that I knew little about in-law relationships. Hesitantly, I asked, "Have you seen Thoren? Is he — is he still angry?"

Thoren himself answered from the door, making both of us jump. (Without wards up, we were too easy to ambush.) "Yes, and no." Holding a bright lantern, he emerged from behind a bookcase and stood for a moment, gazing down at us. As soon as it saw him, Ynez's swan vanished with a pop. "Prima, may I speak to Marina, or am I interrupting House business?" he inquired courteously, with not the slightest hint of sarcasm.

Ynez eyed him suspiciously anyway, parsing his tone and filtering it through her own biases. At length, she was forced to concede that he was sincere. Rising with the aid of her spear, she smoothed out her cloak and nodded at him. "I'll see you back at the house then," she told me.

As she swept grandly past Thoren, I called after her, "Oh — hey, Ynez?" She paused mid-sweep and glanced back at me. "If you leave your cloak in our room, I can hem it tonight."

"Thanks, Marina."

Alone for the first time in days, Thoren and I regarded each other silently for a long moment, he towering over me, me squinting in the glare of his lantern, and neither of us knowing what to say or where to begin.

"The ice — " I croaked. "How — what — "

"Two women and three children have broken bones, half a dozen other townspeople sprained their ankles or wrists, and practically everyone is bruised," he reeled off grimly.

I swallowed hard. "Oh," I said in a tiny voice. "Is there anything I can do? To help?"

Eyes wide with alarm, he whipped his head back and forth. "No!" Then, in a calmer voice — "I already wrote to Karina's husband to request a healer." As the Bjornaer trained in not only Ars Animae but also mundane medicine, they were uniquely equipped to cope with my victims. "House Tytalus will pay for it, of course," he added, entirely unnecessarily.

Feeling too guilty for indignation, I nodded distractedly. "Thoren, I — I really am sorry. I didn't mean to — I know this trip was, I mean, _is_ important to you — "

"Such eloquence," he muttered, but he sat down beside me at last. "Wait a minute — what's _that_?" Casting aside his own injunctions against magic, he pulled out his wand of seeing — which I'd carved to replace the Focus he lost in the Hearth battle — and performed a methodical Ars Vis scan.

While he frowned over the hopelessly messy Effects, I explained, "We're pretty sure that it's Loki's Wonder for monitoring his tricks."

"Loki?"

"Er, yes. Odd — you know, the new bookseller? — he's really Loki. This is one of his boltholes."

Shaking his head, Thoren sat back and muttered, "Of course _he's_ around. And I suppose all of this — " he pointed out the window at the glistening ice — "was his doing?"

A craven urge to blame the obvious scapegoat surged within me, but I forced it back. "No," I admitted. "He may have tipped the balance, but he wasn't exactly creating my Paradox from scratch."

Thoren smiled suddenly, and only then did I realize he already knew. "You're growing up, Marina," he said, sounding so patronizing that I glared at him. "What? It's true!"

And this was the problem with dating someone who'd known you since you were a gawky child. Still, in the name of reconciliation, I let it slide. "Did Ynez tell you about Sweden?"

"Yes, she did. Just now," he replied curtly. "Marina, while I appreciate the sentiment that led the two of you to keep it from me, in the future I would prefer to be informed. I am entirely capable of assessing such situations — and making difficult choices when necessary."

Of course I knew that. It was why I'd kept it from him in the first place — to shield him from that choice. But I could empathize with his annoyance, and I nodded vigorously. "I promise." Casting about for a lighter conversational topic, I inquired, "So how is the sorting going? Of the trunks?"

When he tensed, I realized too late that he thought I was jealous about the love letters. (Which I was. Just a little. But that wasn't what I'd meant.) Still, he gave me the benefit of a doubt and answered the spoken question. "It's going well, actually. I only have two more trunks to go through." After wavering for a moment, he opted to answer my unspoken question too. "When Inga died, her parents returned everything I'd given her, including all of my letters. At the time, I wasn't in the right frame of mind, so to speak, to deal with any of that, and so I shoved them into trunks along with my other possessions and shipped them home. And then I fled Oslo for Athens."

"And it's taken you until now to be able to face those memories," I interpreted softly.

He looked genuinely startled. "What? No, of course not. I made my peace with all of that years ago. I _told_ you when you found me in Tartarus that Inga and I were just friends. But — " he groped for the proper words, straining to make me understand, as if he were explaining a particularly knotty Ars Vis Effect. "But — wasn't it difficult for you and Ynez when the two of you rebuilt the orphanage and sorted through the belongings that Astera and the godlings left behind? You'd made your peace with their loss, and you knew they'd achieved a centuries'-old goal, but — it still wasn't easy, was it?"

"Oh!" Something about that analogy clicked, and the worries that had plagued me since I first read his diary finally began to fade.

"Anyway, I'm returning all the letters to Inga." Seeing the half-gratified, half-dismayed expression on my face, he hastily reassured me, "Not personally! Ynez will do it."

Try as I might, I couldn't quite suppress a grin.

"Kari was right," he muttered to himself. "You really are very young."

All my relief promptly vanished. How his family felt about me was an even more pressing, more _real_ problem, wasn't it? Gathering my thoughts, I asked coldly, needling his pride as I knew exactly how to, "So what will you do now? Will you let your mother and sister find you a nice, conventional, Sleeper maiden to marry and beget children by? Will you build a nice little farmstead and lead a nice, conventional, _sedentary_ family life?"

Fortunately for both of us, Thoren declined my bait. With emphatic patience, he reminded me, "I'm a grown man, Marina. I can make and have made my own decisions for years. Decades, even. Anyway, my family knows perfectly well that mages are significantly more liberal than the general population. What you and I do is our business, and I don't intend to ask anyone else's opinion, much less permission."

"Not even your mother's?" I asked dubiously. For all her laissez-faire approach towards parenting, Astera had occasionally expressed definite opinions on what we should do (keep our promises) and should not do (lie to her about anything — ever). Woe to any orphan who crossed her then!

"Not even my mother's." His voice was firm.

"But — " I couldn't even begin to imagine scorning Astera's values after she'd sheltered me and clothed me and fed me and taught me for sixteen years. True, she'd betrayed me in the end, but I still couldn't bring myself to repudiate her. In fact, what were Ynez and I doing now but carrying out her final wish — that we fix her mistakes, and do better than she had?

Perhaps reading my mind, Thoren reminded me, "The circumstances of my childhood were different from yours, Marina. I haven't lived under my mother's roof since I was seven, nor been supported by her financially since I was fifteen. I suppose that gave me a certain...independence."

"But — isn't it uncomfortable for you, knowing that your entire family disapproves of — " I faltered, not wanting to say "of us" just in case he agreed.

He only shrugged. "I highly doubt that my brother-in-law or any of the children care. Of course I'd prefer that my mother and sister accept us as we are, but I can live with their disapproval." When I remained silent, fidgeting with the handle of my pocketknife, he reached out and took my hand. "I'm not saying that I oppose the idea of marriage, my heart. It just seems somehow irrelevant after everything we've gone through together. But if it will set your mind at ease, then perhaps — "

"No!" I yelped, yanking my hand from his in shock. "Absolutely not!"

Looking just slightly hurt, he faked a smile. "Well, that seems clear enough then."

I hastened to reassure him. "I'm not saying I _never_ want to get married. It's just that if we do it now, everyone will say that it's because we caved in to social pressure. No, no, no, and no again! If we get married, it will be because _we_ want to!"

"What if we _did_ want to now?" he pointed out quite logically. "Would you delay it just to spite everyone else?"

"But-we-don't-want-to," I responded quickly, tripping over my words in my haste. Then I checked his expression. "Right?"

Thoren didn't answer immediately. "Maybe someday," he hedged. Before I could interrogate him, he abruptly changed the subject. "My heart, I noticed some sheets of parchment in our room. All over it, in fact. They seem to form one extremely long poem about how to beguile the, er, object of your affection into falling in love with you. Do I want to know...?"

"Oh!" In my dash to rescue Ynez and Zoe from the clutches of Norwegian night, I'd completely forgotten to put away the manuscript. Smirking, I explained, "That's for Ynez. So maybe she'll finally figure out what's going on with Zoe and do something about it."

Having spent almost as much time observing Zoe's blushes, Thoren only raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure Ynez rather than Zoe is the proper recipient?"

He made an excellent argument — Zoe did seem blissfully ignorant of her own Church-prohibited proclivities, and genuinely convinced that her relationship with Ynez was a very typical Catholic sisterhood. Certainly she'd benefit from Ovid's instruction. However, I had an even better rebuttal. "Zoe would burn me at the stake!"

"You? A mistress of Ars Essentiae?" he replied drily. "Odin forfend."

Sputtering with laughter, I smacked his arm lightly and inquired innocently, "But I thought you disapproved of magic? Especially in front of crowds?"

He sighed in (mostly) mock exasperation. "Marina…." Then he shook his head ruefully, deliberately sidestepping another squabble. "I suppose I should just be grateful that you didn't make me a copy of the _Ars Amatoria_ as well. I'll take that as a vote of confidence in my relationship skills."

After dropping me smack in the middle of his censorious family and then neglecting me to catalogue old love letters, I wasn't so sure. Still, I didn't want to waste more time fighting, especially not after he'd just sort-of-maybe proposed marriage. Slowly and deliberately moving the lamp onto a bookshelf, deploying seductiveness that Ovid himself would have lauded, I climbed into Thoren's lap and straddled him. "Or maybe you're just so bad at it that I thought you needed a personal tutorial?" I suggested sweetly.

"That is also a distinct possibility," he agreed gravely.

* * *

Tangled in each other's arms, the two of us stayed in the bookstore until the hard, unheated floorboards became unbearable. Sighing, I reclaimed my limbs and sat up, running my fingers through my hair. "I suppose we should get back before dinner," I said reluctantly. No need to flaunt Signy's house rules just because I could. Plus the children had raved so much about the Yule banquet that Cly had sworn to abandon me if I missed this opportunity to observe "a tradition that is such an integral part of Norse culture and history."

Less enthused about his cultural heritage, Thoren didn't bother to open his eyes. "Yes, probably. This is the first time we've really talked since we got here, though. It's nice."

"We have the rest of our lives to talk. We do not have the rest of our lives to get to your mother's Yule feast."

Hearing me scramble to my feet and shake out my skirts, Thoren opened one eye and sighed heavily. "Well, if you insist. I suppose you'll want to change before dinner too."

"Change?" I asked, puzzled. "Whatever for?"

"Because your entire back is streaked with dirt and cobwebs?"

"What?" I yelped, craning my head over my shoulder. "Thoren," I wailed, "what should I do? Everyone will know!"

Laughing, he promised, "I'll distract them while you sneak upstairs."

With exaggerated stealth that was completely ruined by my giggling and his sheepish grin, we tiptoed and skidded our way through by-now deserted streets until we could see the back of his mother's house. Hiding behind a neighbor's fence and peering with melodramatic wariness around the corner, Thoren pointed at a small side door and mouthed, "Give me two minutes to enter through the front door, and then use that."

It was just like our missions against the gods, except that we couldn't use Ynez's mind links or my stealth wards. The extra challenge was actually fun.

"Affirmative," I mouthed back, and with a final smirk, he marched intrepidly towards his distraction.

True to his word, in a minute and half, I heard him tramping up the front steps, and, another half-minute later, calling out cheerfully, "I'm home!"

That was my cue. Under cover the commotion from the children, I slipped into the house, dashed past a brightly lit kitchen filled with delicious smells, nearly startled a servant into dropping a stack of plates, and bolted up the back stairs two at a time. Flinging myself into our bedroom, I slammed the door shut and leaned against it, panting and giggling uncontrollably.

A light tap sounded behind me. I whirled and threw the door open. "Thoren, it worked — "

"Indeed, I'm sure my son believes it did." Signy's voice held a hint of amusement. "I suppose he doesn't realize that this house has been in the family for generations and that Eirik — his father — and I used to creep in and out that exact same side door when we were courting?"

"Ooooh." I turned bright red, then sputtered with laughter. "Oh, no. I — maybe we shouldn't tell him?"

Laying a package on the blanket and sitting down on the edge of the bed, Signy gave me a long, measuring look. I steeled myself to hear her say that I was irresponsible with my powers and had brought calamity to a tranquil Sleeper village with my recklessness, and that her son didn't need to associate with people like me.

But she surprised me. Instead of recriminations, what she remarked was this: "My son can be harsh. But I daresay you knew that already."

Unable to form any kind of coherent response, I merely gaped at her.

"I am not a mage, or even a Sleeper scholar of magic. I won't pretend to understand the intricacies of Paradox backlashes. I do, however, understand my son, and I have seen that you bring him happiness."

Happiness! She'd witnessed Thoren running around frantically trying to undo the damage from my actions, and she spoke of his happiness!

Seeing my dubious expression, she reiterated, "Yes, happiness. Marina, what did you think long-term relationships were like? There is love, of course, but there is also inevitably conflict. You just have to find a way to work through it."

"I thought you didn't like me," I blurted out, my tendency to say exactly the wrong thing resurfacing at the worst possible time. "Because I'm so different from Inga."

Exactly as Thoren would have, his mother raised her eyebrows. "And here I was expecting the demigod Secunda of House Tytalus, the daughter of Memory, the sister of the Muses, the cousin to the gods she has devoted her life to fighting, to have a little more confidence in herself. As he has made abundantly clear, you and Thoren are grown adults fully capable of making your own decisions. Why should my approval have anything to do with it?"

"I, I…," I floundered for a bit, struggling to articulate why it was so important that Thoren's family accept me beyond grudging tolerance. "You're right," I answered at last. "We _are_ adults, and capable of making our own decisions...but I know that you and Karina and the children and everyone else in this town are important to him. I wouldn't want to cause him grief by forcing him to choose between us."

"Ah," she said, standing up and reflexively smoothing her dress. "I see." She hesitated for a moment. "We knew Inga for a long time, you see, ever since she and Thoren were children. It is difficult for me to pass judgment on how well suited the two of you are since he has given me no chance to get to know you. But... from what I've seen, you do make him happy — present circumstances excepted — and the fact that you've been together for four years certainly speaks to a certain amount of compatibility. So, for what it's worth, you have my blessing." Regally, she sailed out of the room, but just before she closed the door behind her, she pointed at the window. "Take a look outside, Marina. Things aren't quite as bad you think." Then she was gone, leaving me stunned by how much her manner reminded me of Thoren's.

"Well?" prodded Cly. "Aren't you going to look?"

Nudging aside the curtain, I peered out into the darkness and found golden spheres of light whooshing along the icy roads. What in the world? After a few more minutes, my eyes adjusted fully and I realized that it was the townspeople — on ice skates. With infinite ingenuity, they'd found an entirely mundane way to cope with a magical fiasco.

In a soft, awed voice, Cly murmured, "Sleepers! No matter what mages throw at them, they can handle it."

Staring transfixed at the orbs of lamplight, completely and utterly humbled by human adaptability, I whispered through a lump in my throat, "Yes, yes, they can."

When I finally remembered to open the package Signy had left, I found thick woolen undergarments and socks, as well as a dress in much heavier fabric than anything I owned.


	4. Aurora

"Auntie Marina!" Harald trumpeted gleefully as soon as he caught sight of me hovering in the dining room doorway, biting my lip while I considered the empty chair next to Thoren. For all that Signy had (rather unenthusiastically) ratified my relationship with her son, there was still no escaping the disaster I'd wrought this afternoon, and I wasn't positive I could endure an entire evening of tacit reproach. Luckily, most of the adults were engrossed in an animated discussion of Yule traditions while Karina dashed about corralling her offspring, and so I could dither at my leisure.

At least, I could until the little herald's shout sliced through all conversation, and I experienced the unique pleasure of getting appraised by Karina like a cabbage in the market. With as much poise as I could muster, I sailed into the dining room like the "demigod Secunda, daughter of Memory, and sister of the Muses" that I was. Signy, presiding at the head of the table, accorded me the faintest approving nod.

Ever the gentleman, Thoren rose immediately to pull out my chair. "New dress?" he asked curiously once we were seated, reaching over to rub the fabric of my sleeve.

"Mmm, yes," I said, a little self-consciously. "Your mother was kind enough to lend me warmer clothing."

As satisfied as if she'd personally directed a team of seamstresses to design a couture gown just for me, Karina informed Signy, "There! See, Mother, I told you Helga's spare dress would fit just fine."

Barely raising her head from a book half-hidden under the table, Helga glanced at me, registered my attire, deemed worldly concerns to be trifling next to great literature, and immediately returned to her reading.

My guide to local weather conditions, on the other hand, looked utterly chagrined at his lapse. "I'm sorry, Marina," Thoren apologized remorsefully. "I've been too preoccupied lately." (Yes. Yes, he had. With ancient love letters, no less.) "I should have noticed that all your clothing was too thin." In a move that suggested _someone_ had consulted the _Ars Amatoria_ , he trailed his fingertips down my arm until he found my hand under the table and squeezed it tightly.

"It's okay," I assured him, leaning my head against his shoulder. "I'm warm now."

He smiled down at me, toying with my fingers, until Zoe cleared her throat very pointedly from two seats down and jerked her head at the children. Poor Birgit looked ready to projectile-vomit stomach bile, but Helga had actually torn her attention from her book and was gazing at us dreamily. When she noticed us staring right back, she immediately ducked her head.

"Helga," her mother pleaded, lunging for Alf right before he toppled off his chair, "how many times do I need to tell you not to read at the table? Meals are a time for family. _Especially_ during Yule."

"But I'm almost done reading this poem!" Helga protested. "It's so beautiful — "

"Ewwww!" shouted Harald, precocious literary critic.

"Harald, _please_. Helga, I'm not going to repeat myself. Put the book away right this minute, or I swear to Odin, I will throw it in the fireplace!" ("No!" shrieked Cly inside my head. "No no no! That's sacrilege! Marina, stop her!")

"Fine," the twelve-year-old sighed, echoing her mother's weary tone. Shutting the book as wistfully as Ynez had bidden farewell to Tel, Helga laid it tenderly on a bench beside the divine spear.

Once the pouting girl was back in her seat, her grandmother scanned the table one final time, deemed everyone sufficiently present in body, mind, and spirit, and directed one of the maids, "Tell Cook we're ready now."

Like Dionysian cultists, a procession of servants flooded forth to proffer massive wooden tankards. At the sight of the frothy, golden ale, Cly (who normally considered bodily needs such as nutrition to be a dangerous distraction from scholarly contemplation) perked up and darted to a new bookcase in her library. Yanking out a freshly-written tome, she recited, "After the Christianization of the northern lands, the Scandinavians blended pagan and Christian elements in their Yuletide celebrations." Jabbing a finger at my tankard, she harangued, "To this day, a key component (required by law, no less) involves drinking Yule ale to toast one's kinfolk and friends — plus one's personal choice of the Æsir or Christ and Mary."

"Well, that should make Ynez and Zoe feel right at home," I remarked.

"Hmmmm," said Cly very skeptically, directing my attention to Zoe's outfit. In honor of Christmas, the Inquisitor had forsaken her usual flowery prints and instead donned a glowing white silk dress trimmed in intricate lace, plus a luxurious scarlet velvet cape edged with some type of snow-white fur that probably cost more than I was worth on the slave market. Completing the ensemble was an opulent gem-encrusted gold crucifix. Like the cathedrals in France, the entire costume had been calculated to whack you over the head with the awesome power of the Lord and His representatives here on Earth. (No one had ever accused the Catholic Church of _subtlety_.) "That's the dress uniform of the Spanish Inquisition," Cly reminded me, "designed by Grand Inquisitor Torquemada himself and worn to formal events such as sentencings and executions."

Nothing like a good, old-fashioned witchburning to raise the Yuletide spirit?

More realistically, I pointed out, "Zoe probably just wanted an excuse to dress up." After all, our resident representative of the Lord on Earth had a bit of a vain streak. "I'll bet she missed her fancy, furry cape."

Cly sighed, a little disturbingly dejected that she _wouldn't_ get to observe the Inquisition in action. "Fine, I'll keep working on my ethnographic study of the Norwegian people then. Make sure you catalogue all the dishes they serve here," she ordered. "I want precise notes on the types and cuts of meat, cooking methods, spices, flavors and textures, and any other relevant details."

"Cly, I have a perfect memory. I don't _need_ to take notes on anything!"

For all my confidence, however, Signy's Yule feast certainly strained my inheritance from my biological mother. A steady procession of servants served platter after platter until the table practically collapsed under the onslaught of fish and pork. Dionysus had his bottomless wineskins — and our hosts their bottomless cooking pots.

"Mmmm," I sighed happily, spearing a third sausage and wondering if I could ask Cook for the recipe, "why didn't Astera ever hold banquets like this? I mean, obviously we didn't have Yule or Christmas — " a pointed _ahem_ from Zoe corrected me — "but we could have celebrated Midsummer."

Cutting up a slice of ham daintily, Ynez responded, "Probably because of Plague and famine? Plus House Criamon didn't have the money?" In fact, even after combing through the orphanage records, neither of us had ever figured out how Astera scraped together enough funds to feed us all. Those godlings ate _a lot_.

"We _could_ have been rich," I countered. "All we had to do was charge the other Houses for using the Hearth."

Savoring his meal and only half-monitoring the conversations around him, Thoren nearly choked on a bite of cod. "Thank Odin you weren't Astera's treasurer!" he sputtered. "You'd have bankrupted House Bonisagus!"

I took an unrepentant bite of sausage. "Yep. Indeed I would have." That negative cash flow would have redressed the power imbalance between our Houses.

Shaking his head, Thoren muttered, "I _knew_ I should have recruited you."

"Oh, I _hardly_ think House Bonisagus suffered from financial problems," Ynez retorted, obviously still bitter that Thoren's Secunda once charged her with murder and extorted a massive fine from us (for which Zoe had promptly volunteered the Inquisition's bottomless coffers, but still).

Wisely, Thoren carved and offered her a pork rib instead of commenting.

* * *

Partway through the feast, an increasingly loud pounding cut through our conversations, as if someone had been knocking for quite some time and was on the verge of hacking the door down. Practically dropping a tray of cheese and jam on the table, one of the maids scurried off to open it and moments later, a red-headed giant burst into the dining room.

"Ingolf!" exclaimed Karina, her face lighting up, at the same time that Alf squealed, "Daddy!" and wriggled off the edge of his chair.

"Watch out!" the giant warned, dashing forward. Scooping up Alf, Karina's husband swung their son in a wide circle overhead (Helga narrowly ducked a flying shoe), set him back in his chair with an admonitory "Stay!" and bent down to kiss his wife. "Signy," he greeted his mother-in-law at last. "Happy Yule!"

Majestically, she inclined her head at him. (I could practically see Ynez taking notes.) "Ingolf, a happy Yule to you too. Be welcome at my table."

The same maid scuttled back in with an extra chair, while a second maid laid out a plate and tankard for him. Taking no note of them, the Tertius of House Bjornaer scanned his fellow dinner guests, his gaze skidding over Ynez, Zoe, and me to land on his brother-in-law. "Brother," Ingolf said (a little coolly, I thought). "How nice to see you again. What has it been now, a decade?"

"Nine years, to be precise," Thoren replied neutrally. "I assume you received my message requesting a healer?"

"I did, and here I am. The Primus was kind enough to spare me." He paused for a heartbeat, giving us all a chance to appreciate his indispensability. "I must admit," he continued lightly, in a tone that I might have considered joking if Thoren hadn't been quite so tense, "I was rather hoping that it was _your_ Paradox backlash, but the Resonance doesn't match. Unless, of course, your Resonance has changed along with your avatar?"

Sidestepping the question — which Ingolf probably interpreted as a _mea culpa_ — Thoren only remarked, "It's very generous of the Primus to permit you to spend Yule with Kari and the children."

"It is, isn't it?" Satisfied that he'd established his preeminence, Ingolf asked Signy cheerily, "So — who are our guests? Besides Thoren, of course."

Ten minutes after he'd entered the room, I still hadn't detected any Ars Vis scans, so the Tertius was either very trusting or very careless.

Before her mother could respond, Karina leapt in and — contrary to all rules of proper etiquette — hastily introduced us in seating order. "My heart, these are my brother's friends: Zoe, Ynez, and Marina." None of us missed the deliberate omission of any further identifying information. Ynez cocked her head at me, obviously wondering why Karina had skipped our titles and even last names. (It was indeed a far cry from Loki's flowery honorifics.) To us, Karina made the rather obvious statement, "This is my husband, Ingolf."

Said husband favored us with a broad, confident grin. "Nice meeting you, young mages."

A soft tap sounded in my head — Ynez surreptitiously opening a mind link among the four of us. _Okay, what's going on here?_ she demanded while returning a polite smile in Ingolf's direction.

Thoren gave her a hard look, displeased by yet more blatant use of magic in front of Sleepers. _Ingolf is...on the insecure side_ , he explained at last, selecting his words with care.

 _Ah, that makes sense_ , said Zoe, forgetting herself and nodding sagely. Luckily, she happened to be looking at Ingolf, so he accepted it as a gesture of respect and inclined his head.

 _Does he really not plan to scan us_? I asked incredulously. (If I were honest, my pride was slightly hurt that he hadn't identified us at once. How many Zoe-Ynez-Marina trios could possibly be associated with Thoren? How many Zoe-Ynez-Marina trios even existed in the mage world?)

 _My guess is that he assumes you rank so far below him that Kari didn't bother to give your titles_.

True, the official insignia of House Tytalus hadn't yet reached us (courtesy of "production and courier delays"), and Zoe's Inquisitorial regalia deliberately excluded markers of Hermetic affiliation to symbolize the unity of Christendom. I, of course, was garbed in a dress borrowed from Ingolf's own daughter, and without her divine weaponry, there was little to distinguish Ynez from any other young woman barely out of girlhood.

 _Hmmmm_ was Zoe's reaction. She didn't even need to articulate her disapproval of petty contests over base, worldly concerns.

 _Trust me_ , advised Thoren, sawing off a chunk of cheese and stuffing it determinedly into his mouth, _ignorance is bliss. His ignorance, our bliss._

After a moment, I gave a mental shrug. If Ingolf couldn't connect my Resonance to the icy wonderland he'd just trekked through, I saw no need to enlighten him.

 _Okay_ , Ynez acquiesced a heartbeat later, very consciously resolving that since all mortals knelt before her in the end anyway, it ill became the Queen of Hades to squabble over issues of protocol. (That was for Zoe to enforce.)

As Thoren had predicted, possibly willful obliviousness lent Ingolf a certain charm and conviviality. He had everyone in stitches as he regaled us with tales of magical mishaps and pranks in House Bjornaer. Although he slid in a couple (somewhat justified) digs about Bonisagi stuffiness, the meal proceeded smoothly all the way up the toasts that Cly so eagerly anticipated. As head of the household, Signy offered the first tribute — to the Æsir, of course. Zoe's face froze, and Ynez literally squirmed in her seat before she remembered her dignity. Then she made a swift hand gesture, and the two Catholics sipped primly at their ale.

As soon as everyone else had finished quaffing to the gods of the North, Zoe rose magisterially, her bejeweled crucifix casting colorful flecks of light across our faces. "I propose a toast," she proclaimed in a sonorous voice that could have filled a cathedral. "To Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and to Mary, Mother of God."

Under cover of drinking, I whispered a few Enochian words to verify that she wasn't using Ars Mentis to convert the Sleepers. Thoren exhaled sharply in exasperation — then quirked an inquiring eyebrow. I gave a minute shake of the head. Zoe really did come by that commanding presence honestly.

Into the somewhat awkward silence that ensued, Helga sighed wistfully, "Your necklace is so _pretty_."

"It is, isn't it?" Karina agreed, seizing this pretext to steer everyone away from the religious quagmire.

Ingolf startled all of us with a merry peal of laughter. "An oath then, my heart! A Yule oath that I shall lavish upon you such a necklace as you have never before seen!"

 _This is so exciting! Yule oaths are unbreakable!_ Cly enthused over the mind link.

 _Pleeeease don't pop out now_ , I beseeched her.

In so low a voice that we could barely hear him, Thoren muttered, _He didn't specify what_ type _of necklace — only that she's never seen its like_.

I had to bite my lip to hold back a snort.

Ynez suggested, _A necklace of vines and twigs_?

 _I'm sure she's seen that_ , Zoe pointed out, fingering her crucifix and basking in Helga's open admiration. _They do have three daughters._

 _A necklace of cats?_ I proposed, picturing them twining their way around Karina's neck and meowing loudly in her ears. _Although I guess that's more like a stole._

 _A necklace of snakes is more like him_ , Thoren burst out, surprising us all with his vehemence.

Incredibly, Ingolf still hadn't noticed all the Effects right across the table from him. Grinning at his wife, he joked, "Now if only we had a sacred boar for me swear on!"

"Auntie Marina can carve one," Birgit piped up, completely oblivious to the conspiracy of silence surrounding our identities. "Harald, show Daddy the dog she gave you." To her credit, she did hesitate very slightly before "gave."

Without waiting for permission, Harald scrambled out of the room and back to present the Focus I'd carved the first night. Since I'd never gotten a chance to scrub my Resonance, Ingolf immediately pinpointed it as the one permeating the village and its environs. "Ah, so it was _your_ backlash," he remarked, taking the dog, examining it clinically, and applying an Ars Vis scan.

"Mmmm, yes," I confessed distractedly, wondering if he'd finally connected us with _those_ mages. You know, the really famous ones who were the talk of Eurasia?

His reaction gave nothing away. "Harald," he scolded his son gently, "how many times do I need to tell you? Never steal mages' Foci." Ignoring Harald's indignant denials, Ingolf extended the dog to me and asked a little ironically, "I assume you'd like to erase your Resonance before it turns into a toy?"

"I wouldn't mind," I admitted, accepting the carving and self-consciously mumbling a few Enochian words over it. By now I was positive that he knew exactly who we were but was deliberately following his wife's lead and granting us anonymity.

Perhaps drawing the same conclusion, Signy suddenly announced, "Children, now that you've all eaten, it's time to feed the _Julenisse_! You wouldn't want him to get hungry, would you?"

"No!" cried Alf, Harald, and Birgit excitedly, bouncing up and down in their seats. Helga merely heaved a heavy sigh and looked longingly at her book.

"You may be excused," Signy told them with a smile, "to ask Cook for a bowl of porridge. Ask _nicely_ , and she might even let you add the pat of butter."

As the children tumbled from their chairs and dashed towards the back of the house (with Helga feigning indifference but running just as fast as any of her siblings), I could hear them arguing ferociously over who would add the butter this year. "Me me me!" "That's not fair, you got to do it _last_ time!" "Yeah, you put so much that Cook got mad!" "But the _Julenisse_ was happy — Grandma says he's been extra nice all year!"

Seeing the non-Norwegians' confused expressions, Signy explained, "The _Julenisse_ is a spirit who often helps out around the house. His payment each Yule is a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on top. The size of that pat is open to interpretation, of course."

I could only imagine! Fascinated, I inquired, "What happens if you forget? Or disagree over the amount of butter?"

"You really don't want to displease — " Thoren began.

"Woe to anyone who neglects the _Julenisse_!" Ingolf cut him off. "He'll play pranks all over the house, or even desert it forever. And that's just if you're fortunate. He might also punish you by slaughtering your livestock."

"I'd be happy to negotiate with this spirit on your behalf," Ynez proposed. "He seems a little unreasonable."

At that, Signy laughed outright. "Thank you for the offer, but we get along quite well. And the children have always loved setting out the bowl of porridge for him."

Grinning mischievously at Thoren, Karina joked, "As I recall, I would have _loved_ to set out the bowl of porridge. _Certain_ older siblings who shall _not_ be named always insisted that I was too clumsy and would spill the porridge and offend the spirit."

A _certain_ older sibling who was _not_ named replied innocently, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I was a model child. Wasn't I, Mother?"

With a quirk of her mouth, Signy uttered a most convincing, "Yes, dear. A paragon of a son."

"Ha!" Karina snorted.

Smirking, Ingolf reminded her, "Didn't you say your brother was something of a hellion? Wasn't that why your parents packed him off to House Bonisagus?"

" _Really_?" I exclaimed, turning an incredulous, wide-eyed stare on Thoren. " _You_?" I'd always pictured him as a male version of sweet, obedient, earnest little Ynez (before she hit her I-am-the-Prima-so- _there_ phase, anyway).

Smiling reminiscently, Thoren admitted, "I think it's safe to say that I was probably more like Harald than Helga."

"There's no 'probably' about it," Karina retorted. "We were just lucky the Bonisagi beat some manners into you."

 _Sotto voce_ , Ynez murmured, "They might have overshot." Ingolf, ears pricked for any slight to his brother-in-law, guffawed loudly, and I kicked her under the table. She yelped — more from shock than pain, I thought — and mock-glared at me. "Astera should have sent _you_ to House Bonisagus," she complained. Offering Thoren an olive branch for the first time since she entered her rebellious stage, she appealed jokingly, "Can't you do anything about her, Magister?"

Smiling back gratefully, he replied with faux earnestness, "I wouldn't dare, Prima."

Across the table, Karina flinched a little and cast a nervous glance at Ingolf, but before he needed to acknowledge any inconvenient truths, their children came spilling back into the room, bickering vociferously over why Birgit got to add the butter and chronicling the butter-adders and amounts of butter over the past few years.

"Presents now?" Alf lisped pleadingly, toddling up to Ingolf and hugging his leg.

Oozing with brotherly love, Harald wheedled, "Alfie has been so _good_ all day. Can't he open his presents now?"

"Little conniver," Ingolf muttered under his breath, sounding indescribably proud of his older son. To the impatient children, he declared, "Of course! We've had _our_ dinner, the _Julenisse_ has _his_ dinner, so it's present time!"

Bounding up and ushering everyone to the living room (without asking Signy's permission), he planted himself in an armchair right by the fire and ordered a maid to bring his travel bag. Karina winced when he dropped the muddy pack right on her mother's hearthrug, but she did brighten at the gifts he'd selected for their brood. Among high-pitched squeals of delight, they unwrapped trendy toy after trendy toy from Oslo. "These are the hottest designs of the year," Ingolf explained to the room at large. "Now that the worst of the Plague is over — " thanks to us — "the Houses are devoting more time to culture and art." (You're welcome.) "A handful of mages even specialize in toys." Borrowing Alf's plush dragon, he flung it into the air like a falcon. Instead of crashing ignominiously to the floor, it spread gilded canvas wings and hovered overhead, spewing gouts of colorful smoke.

"But that's a minor Wonder!" I exclaimed.

"As well as the hottest toy of 1494," Ingolf replied proudly. "You have no idea when I had to preorder it! The waiting list is at least six months long!"

Torn between outrage at the frivolous use of magic and vindication at this even more blatant abuse than mine, I slid a triumphant glance at Thoren.

He didn't notice. He was too busy glowering at the dragon.

Before the ecstatic children could scatter with their booty, Ingolf looked over at his brother-in-law. "Your turn!" he announced merrily. "Children, don't you want to see what Uncle Thoren brought for you?"

It was my turn to wince when Thoren retrieved our sack of goodies and began distributing the homely wooden puppets that I'd carved, he'd assembled, and Ynez and Zoe had painted. Given our cabal's financial straits, I'd denounced the toy shops in Oslo as exorbitant and decreed that we could make our own presents. (Seriously, no one ever _paid_ us for rescuing them from the gods. Quivering townspeople at most shoved a few loaves of bread in our direction — the ones who didn't flee our very shadows, that is.) Surrounded by children clinging to the "hottest toys of 1494," I regretted this scrimping.

 _You can blame me_ , I muttered to others over the mind link, eyeing Ingolf's carefully appreciative expression.

Forgetting again, Zoe gave a firm shake of her head. _No_ , she replied flatly. _Children should not be spoiled. They must be taught from a young age to vanquish materialistic desires_.

For once, I appreciated her stern worldview.

 _Our presents are perfectly lovely!_ Ynez defended our handiwork. _When I was their age, I'd have loved any_ new _book or toy! Practically everything I owned was a hand-me-down from an older sibling or cousin._

Diplomatically, Karina exclaimed over each gift as Thoren unveiled and bestowed it, obviously trying to prompt an adequately enthusiastic response — with varying degrees of success correlated with the recipient's age. Helga uttered a polite but insincere thank-you and immediately vanished into a corner with a collection of epic poetry (complete with animated illustrations) from her father. After careful contemplation of her clown puppet, Birgit began to carve something into its torso using the gleaming pocketknife Ingolf had given her. Harald, on the other hand, pouted openly when he saw his wooden lion, tossed it aside, and sprawled out on the rug with his set of tin Vikings. Good old Alf delivered the most gratifying reaction — too young to tell the difference in price point, he was more excited by the quantity than quality of his worldly possessions.

"Oh, oops," said Thoren, poking his head into the sack and resurfacing with a sheath of parchment. "I must have grabbed this by accident. Marina, did you want to give it to Ynez now or later?"

It was the _Ars Amatoria_ , of course.

Well, Ynez _had_ just confessed to a childhood longing for new books, hadn't she? "Why not now?" I shrugged as casually as I could. _Almost_ suppressing a mischievous grin, I passed the manuscript to her with no fanfare whatsoever. "Merry Christmas, Sis. I'll bind it later."

Almost as excited as the children with their shiny Osloan toys (but much, much too dignified to squeal), Ynez accepted the stack of loose pages with exaggerated care and leafed through them delicately, handling the parchment with her very fingertips.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Thoren whispered in my ear, goggling at her with all the fascinated horror of a mage watching a Sleeper ride a horse off a cliff.

"Shhhh!" I flapped a hand at him. "I don't want to miss anything!"

Much to my consternation, Ynez appeared to be so engrossed in picking out every last detail on every last illuminated capital that she didn't even bother to skim the text. While her fixation was certainly a vote of confidence in my scribal skills, I rather thought she'd missed the entire point of the book. (Note to self: When copying erotica, either include lurid illustrations — or omit decoration of any variety.)

At last, unable to bear the suspense one second longer, I prompted with inimitable subtlety, "Ynez, aren't you going to _read_ it?"

"But it's so _pretty_!" she protested.

"Too pretty to _read_?"

More than happy to ascribe nefarious motives to her colleagues, Zoe eyeballed me suspiciously and leaned over Ynez's shoulder to inspect the content. Practically hyperventilating, she choked out a scandalized, "Marina, what — what _smut_ is this?"

Striving for wounded innocence and falling far, far short, I uttered that timeless defense, "It's a _classic_! It's great literature! It's _art_!"

When she finally registered the words, Ynez's eyeballs attempted quite a creditable imitation of Alf's new jack-in-the-box. "Mariiiiina! What — why — "

Finally! I toppled into Thoren's lap, convulsing with laughter.

Shaking his head a little, Thoren advised drily, "Don't forget to breathe, my heart."

"Marina!" Zoe hissed, rushing over and trying to haul me upright. "Decorum! Please!" The sliver of my mind still capable of rational analysis noted that the Inquisitor sounded even more appalled by my posture than by the poem. "Think of the _children_!"

I didn't need to _think_ of the children — I only had to _look_ at them. Harald's face popped up in my vision (sideways). Cocking his head and then tilting his upper body ninety degrees until we were eye to eye, he inquired solicitously, "Auntie Marina, are you all right?"

The more relevant question might be, "Is Auntie Ynez all right?" She'd been conspicuously silent since that first incoherent protest. Gasping for breath, I barely managed to sit up halfway by dint of clawing at Thoren's shoulder, took one look at her expression of simultaneous fascination and repugnance, and promptly collapsed again.

" _Marina Cimon bani Tytalus_! This is behavior unbecoming of a Secunda!" Zoe snapped (exposing our officially-secret identities for good).

"Oh — oh — but Zoe, her _face_ — "

 _Pop!_

Out of Ynez's sober-grey-clad lap bounded a rabbit the exact same shade of ebony as Tel's hair. Landing cat-like on the floor, it reared up on its hind legs and surveyed each human critically.

"Bunny!" screamed Harald, lunging at it with outstretched arms.

With a flick of its white cottontail, it skipped nimbly out of the way, bunched up into a ball two feet away, and sampled the rug experimentally.

"A rabbit, Ynez? Which emotion is this one?" Mentally, I ticked off the ones I'd seen over the years: wrath-bear, pride-peacock, love-swan, guilt-serpent. (That last one didn't show up nearly as often as you might expect. Maybe our accumulated collateral damage was desensitizing Ynez.)

Blushing the most charming shade of carmine, Ynez desperately tried to shoo the spirit back into the Umbra. "Go away!" she hissed at it. "Scram!"

"Oooooh!" Zoe burst out, her own cheeks turning a screaming hot pink. "A _rabbit_! Oh Lord!" she gasped, uncharacteristically breaking one of her own Commandments. (Yes, Cly and I had them word-perfect in spite of ourselves.)

Both over- and under-head, Thoren was shaking from suppressed laughter, quite spoiling his effectiveness as my pillow.

"I'm missing something," I complained, poking at his arm and getting his chest instead.

" _Seriously_?" he asked incredulously once he could breathe again. "An erotic poem? A teenage girl? A rabbit spirit embodying an _emotion_? Do you really need me to spell it out for you?"

"Oooooh! Oh noooo!" I attempted to burrow into his lap — with woefully limited success, not being a rabbit myself. "Do I need to start running?"

Unfortunately, by now the commotion had attracted everyone else's attention.

"Bunny!" shouted Alf, dropping his jack-in-the-box and dragon, clambering to his feet, and stomping after the spirit on short, stubby legs.

"No, it's _mine_! I saw it first!" yelled Harald, diving for the rabbit.

Just before his hands closed around its furry backside, the lust spirit streaked between Ynez's and Zoe's legs (both yanked their skirts out of the way so quickly that — oh horror! — they flashed their ankles) and crouched under the sofa. Entirely undaunted, the two boys flattened themselves on the floor and swiped wildly at it. Alf even wriggled halfway under the sofa before Karina's stern shout halted his advance.

Scarlet with humiliation, Ynez tucked her skirts firmly around her legs and fumbled frantically with her mirror. Through clenched teeth, she chanted, "Go away go away go away _go away_."

Naturally, Ingolf chose this most inopportune moment to grace us with his assistance. "What _is_ that?" he asked curiously. Too dignified to get onto his own hands and knees, he encouraged his sons to flush out the rabbit so he could get a better look.

Driven past her limits, Ynez shrieked into her mirror, "Go away! I am the warden of the spirits, and I command you to _go away_ now!"

Dismayed shouts rose from the boys. "It's gone!" "Bunny, come baaaack!"

Ynez sagged in relief, slumped back against the sofa cushions, and pressed her palms to her cheeks. The glare she aimed in my direction suggested that I might encounter a revenge spirit very, very soon.

"It's all right, boys," Ingolf consoled his sons. "It's a spirit. They come and go." Lifting her head, Ynez started to cast him a grateful look — until he added, "I'm sure it will return," and gave her a slow, deliberate smile.

A deluge of incoherent, murderous thoughts swamped our mind link, some of them involving rather gory scenes of Inquisitorial torture chambers.

 _That's actually a pretty good idea_ , said Zoe, sounding impressed (and finally remembering to use the mind link). _I didn't know you were quite so...creative, Soror Ynez. If you don't mind, I will suggest that in my next report to House Quaesitor._

 _That cad deserves every last millisecond of it_ , Ynez snapped.

Grateful that _my_ fair visage hadn't featured in aforementioned bloody fantasies, I kept as still as a bunny with a hawk circling overhead.

Wrapping his arms around me protectively, just in case Zoe exacted vengeance on Ynez's behalf, Thoren soothed, _Ignore him_. _It's not personal._

 _Okay_ , fumed Ynez, _how is this not personal? How can it possibly be "not personal"?_

 _Because he acts like this around any of my friends and colleagues?_

 _That sounds pretty personal to me_ , I had to point out.

The mind link transmitted Thoren's sigh very clearly. _It's personal against me, but not against any of you?_ he amended.

 _Jerk_ , Ynez grumbled, reverting to her rebellious-teenager vocabulary.

Zoe agreed wholeheartedly. _He needs to be educated about Christian charity. It_ is _Christmas, after all — a time of peace on Earth and goodwill towards all men. And women._

The exact same thought occured to Thoren and me.

 _Why don't you —_

 _You could teach him —_

Ynez perked right up. "That's right!" she exclaimed out loud. "It's Christmas Eve! What better time to spread the word of the Lord?"

Thoren pointed a not-entirely-kindly smile straight at his brother-in-law. "Yes, what better time? I'm sure Ingolf embraces any opportunity to learn about other faiths. He's so...catholic in his interests."

Ingolf looked as trapped as a rabbit under a sofa, and Karina glared daggers at her brother, but I would have sworn by any deity that the corners of Signy's lips rose ever so slightly. "Diversity is a virtue," the matriarch pronounced. "Come, children, Ynez and Zoe are going to tell us stories about _their_ Yule."

Naturally, the Lord's representatives on Earth needed no further encouragement to wreak a little impromptu conversion. As if by Ars Conjunctionis, Zoe immediately produced a copy of the Bible from what must have been a voluminous pocket and spread it across her and Ynez's laps. Their heads bent close together, they paged through the Scriptures until they came to an image of the Madonna and child, with the wise men, shepherds, and livestock all kneeling in adoration at her feet. Turning the book, Zoe showed the picture to the children.

"Do you know who Jesus is?" Ynez asked them.

Thoren could barely hide a smirk as he slanted a covert glance at Ingolf. The Bjornaer looked as if he were enduring an excruciatingly tedious lecture.

His children, on the other hand, shook their heads absently while gawking at the colorful illustration. After much scrutiny, Birgit objected, "Sheep can't bow like that. Their knees don't bend that way."

From Inquisitor's expression, that was not the reaction she'd hoped for.

Ynez, who'd probably never seen a real, live sheep up close in her life, quickly suggested, "Maybe the artist doesn't know as much as you, Birgit. You can become a Christian, and then when you grow up, you can draw new pictures for the Bible."

The little girl shook her head resolutely. "No," she declared. "I'm going to carve runestones." She held out her puppet for inspection. "See?" Crudely etched runes spelling out B-I-R-G-I-T-I-N-G-O-L-F-S-D-O-T-T-I-R encircled its torso, and a snake undulated the length of one arm.

"Ah," said Zoe knowingly. "That must be the serpent that tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden." Flipping back to the beginning of the Bible, she displayed a picture of a green snake wrapped around an apple tree conversing with a (mostly) naked woman.

Karina and Ingolf exchanged raised eyebrows and suggestive looks, but Birgit recoiled in disgust. "No! This isn't a silly little lingworm! This is Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent!" she cried. "It lives in the ocean and surrounds the whole world! See the waves here?" She pointed indignantly at a few jagged lines she'd carved next to the snake.

Deciding that maybe treating the Bible like a picture book wasn't the correct tactic for converting young children, Zoe asked Alf next, "Can you read this?" She pointed at a Psalm that began, "Cantate Domino canticum novum."

I hastily converted a snicker into a cough.

Bewildered, the four-year-old blinked at the dense lettering, stuck his thumb into his mouth, and shook his head emphatically. "Uh uh."

Ynez, who had more realistic expectations for children's reading levels, whispered in Zoe's ear, "He's too young."

"Oh, is he?" Zoe flushed slightly (probably more from Ynez's proximity than embarrassment). "I'm not very good at telling ages," she babbled.

Ynez recommended, "Let's teach them a Christmas song."

And so they determinedly set about organizing a children's choir, although they had to keep stopping to explain concepts such as "righteousness." Which, needless to say, didn't go very well, especially since the abstract theological discussions quickly degenerated into active debate among the adults. To my shock, Ingolf did indeed display the catholic interests of which Thoren had accused him, and soon he and Zoe were engrossed in arguing over whether Balder was really supposed to be Jesus Christ, except that the Norse forgot the one true God and had to reconstruct a bastardized religion.

 _They're actually having fun!_ I observed to Thoren and Ynez in disbelief. _Who'd have thought?_

This bizarre new form of holiday entertainment was interrupted by the arrival of two townspeople, an older man leading a teenaged boy who slouched in the time-honored, chagrined attitude of teenagers everywhere. Studying the rug as if fascinated by its fibers, he cringed at every word as his father explained, "Our boy, Asmund, has been telling us all evening that he can see how the air moves and why the fire burns. We think he's Awakened. At least, we _hope_ so. Either that — or he's possessed."

Well, this roomful of mages was uniquely equipped to deal with either possibility. I started scanning the boy, but Thoren — naturally — finished first. "Your son has indeed Awakened," he informed the man, who sagged in relief. "The ability to perceive natural forces is one of the first manifestations of Ars Essentiae."

Not to be outdone, Ingolf launched into a jargon-laden discourse on how Awakening could be triggered by trauma, of which the events of this afternoon certainly constituted a shining example. From there he progressed to an exposition on the theory of avatars, and finally segued into his own pet projects. Obviously pleased by these illustrious mages' interest in his offspring, the father nodded along gamely while the son tried his hardest to melt into a puddle of icy water on the floor (which was theoretically possible but would take years of training).

"Asmund," Thoren broke in at last, returning us to more pressing concerns than arcane academic research, "you have a choice now. Since you have Awakened, you will need to be apprenticed so you can learn to control and hone your abilities. Luckily, we have representatives from four of the Hermetic Houses here, so you can select one."

"Which one is best?" the father demanded instantly.

Thoren looked as if he wanted rather badly to proclaim that of course House Bonisagus, whose first Primus founded the Order of Hermes itself, was the "best." Succumbing to diplomacy, however, he calmly replied, "Each House excels at a different specialization. For example, House Bonisagus dominates the field of magical theory." I rolled my eyes a little but had to concede the accuracy of that statement. "House Tytalus focuses on, um, shaping reality through sheer force of Will." Not to mention conflict — wait, maybe we _shouldn't_ mention conflict while recruiting. "House Quaesitor seeks and enforces justice." Zoe fingered her crucifix. "And House Bjornaer pursues the healing arts." Ingolf grumbled over this very limited description of his House and its shapeshifting mages, but Karina elbowed him into silence. "In short, which House best suits young Asmund depends entirely on his interests and inclinations."

"Asmund?" the father asked. "What are your interests and inclinations?"

Mortified, the boy mumbled something unintelligible and slouched even harder.

Gently lifting me out of his lap so he could rise, Thoren placed a paternal hand on Asmund's shoulder. (The boy continued his contemplation of the rug and the weaver's arts.) "I know, it's not easy," the former Primus of House Bonisagus said softly. "Awakening changes your life forever, for good _and_ for ill. You will attain immense power, of course, but you will sacrifice decades with kinfolk and friends that you can never regain, even with the use of Ars Temporis. You will counsel kings and parley with gods, but never again will you sit contentedly by the hearth in your home on a cold winter's night."

"Oh, Thoren…," I whispered, feeling his melancholy wash through the mind link.

Ingolf, predictably, objected to this bleak characterization of the mage lifestyle. "It depends on which House and which cabal you join. Don't judge all mages by yourself," he rebuked Thoren.

" _Ingolf_ ," Karina hissed.

From the sofa, the ancient, compassionate voice of Death Incarnate intoned, "Asmund, all things come to an end, whether it be the tender green leaf that wilts and crumbles in autumn, or the innocence of childhood, or even life itself at the last. It is not given to us to choose the mantle of magehood, only the manner in which we wear it." Thus spake Ynez, who had perhaps sacrificed the most out of any of us when she accepted the throne of Hades.

At her words, everyone twitched and shuddered. Asmund looked up for the first time to goggle at the way in which black shadows twined around the tiny eighteen-year-old girl, shaping themselves into a dark helm over her head and three dogs' heads that reared over her shoulder, and maybe — just maybe, if you looked out of the corner of your eye — cold, foreboding gates that yawned open and extended tendrils of icy mist...

As her eyes met Asmund's, Ynez blushed all of a sudden.

Up in her lap popped a blond, cat-sized rabbit whose furry ears ripped a hole right through the Hadean shades. They wavered and melted away, and limned in the golden light from the fireplace, the rabbit bounded down, hopped straight across the room to Asmund, and leaped up at his chest. Instinctively he caught it, and it snuggled against him, settling contentedly into a great bundle of soft fur with its fluffball tail sticking out over the crook of one elbow. When he tentatively stroked its head, I could swear it emitted a purring noise. (Obviously the denizens of the Umbra were not naturalists.)

"What is _that_?" exclaimed the father. "That is definitely not native to Norway!"

"No," replied Ingolf smoothly. "It is native to the spirit realm, otherwise known to mages as the Umbra. I believe that this particular spirit is a manifestation of — "

"Buunnnnny-wabbit!" cried Alf, tackling Asmund around the knees and attempting to climb his legs.

"That's not fair! Why does it like _you_ better?" Harald demanded indignantly, jumping up and down and tugging at the only bit of the rabbit he could reach — its tail.

Showing blessed ignorance of the bunny-wabbit's true nature, Asmund knelt and tried to hand the spirit over to the little boys, but it kicked and twisted and categorically refused to leave the circle of his arms.

Her face the crimson hue of an Inquisitorial dress uniform, Ynez scrambled for ye old mirror and chanted as fast as she could in Latin, "Have-mercy-on-me-O-God-according-to-your-steadfast-love-cleanse-me-from-my-sin…."

"Is he really that good looking?" I whispered in Thoren's ear, scrutinizing Asmund from blond head to booted toe (in the name of determining what so inspired the lust spirit, of course).

"He can't possibly be as handsome as I," Thoren (whose attractiveness lay more in personality than physique) whispered back with a perfectly straight face.

"No, no, of course not. You're just the paragon of male beauty," I assured him. "Your face could launch a thousand ships." At his skeptical expression, I specified, "If only to flee the sight of it."

Exhibiting no trace of insecurity, he rolled his eyes. "Stick to your historical treatises, Marina," he advised. "I don't think you qualify as a love poet."

"Restore-to-me-the-joy-of-your-salvation-and-sustain-in-me-a-willing-heart!" Ynez shouted triumphantly, flourishing her mirror like a scepter.

With a final heartbroken nuzzle, the spirit faded lingeringly back into the Umbra.

When the chaos had subsided at last, Ingolf, still chuckling, suggested to the father that young Asmund might fare best in House Bjornaer, which adhered to a more disciplined and _structured_ style of training. Eyeing Ynez a little suspiciously, as if expecting her to evoke more wildlife in the living room, the father assented emphatically.

 _Well,_ Zoe groused, _we just lost_ another _potential recruit thanks to Marina._

 _What did_ I _do_? I asked indignantly.

 _You tempted Soror Ynez into sin! The manifestation of her...um, sin provided Ingolf with the opportunity to swoop in and snatch a promising new apprentice._

 _Well_ , Thoren defended me, _I would think that the_ sedentary _nature of the Bjornaer was a larger consideration in this case._

Playing peacemaker, Ynez consoled Zoe, _It's all right_. _We'll grow our cabal eventually. We just need to meet the right people._

While they discussed recruiting strategies that would maximize our chances of meeting these intrepid "right people" who'd embrace a peripatetic lifestyle and high risk of death-by-angry-Greek-god, Thoren tugged me over to the window. "Look outside, my heart."

Pushing aside the curtain, I saw brilliant turquoise and myrtle green streaks of light rippling across the night sky. "What is that?" I gasped, sounding as shocked as Asmund's father when he saw the rabbit. "That's not an Ars Essentiae lightshow, is it?" At the conclusion of the general conference, the Tytalans had arranged for a dazzling display of (literally) magical fireworks synchronized with music. Need I add that Thoren enjoyed the gala less than he should have — but more than he'd admit?

"It's an aurora borealis," he explained, "a particularly spectacular one by the looks of it. Want to go outside so we can see better?"

As if to cast down a gauntlet, a gust of wind swooshed down the street, rattling all the icicles and making them tinkle like windchimes. Running a hand over my skirt, I decided to trust Northern fabric to defy Northern elements. "Sure."

Hand in hand, the two of us slipped out that trusty side door that had granted passage to so many generations of lovers, and stared at the scene in wonderment. Overhead, it looked as if someone had woven the sheerest silk scarves, dyed them the brightest colors imaginable, and trailed them across a swathe of black velvet. But that wasn't all. Paradox had created a world full of looking glasses, and the aurora reflected off every last icy surface, be it the vast, smooth expanses on the ground or the tapered, faceted icicles that hung from every tree branch, every eave. Above us, below us, around us danced the Northern Lights like the rainbow-hued rays of Astera's Ascension.

For long moments we stood, not speaking, not touching, simply looking and memorizing. "It's so _beautiful_ ," I breathed at last. "I've never seen anything like it, ever."

"You only see these in the North," he answered wistfully. "I loved them when I was a child. I'd forgotten..."

How much he had sacrificed for magic, how many decades with kinfolk and friends, how many peaceful nights sitting contentedly by a warm fire with the aurora dancing outside! (Or, in this case, standing contentedly in the backyard with the aurora dancing overhead.)

"Do you regret coming, my heart?" he murmured, wrapping his arms and cloak around me and pulling me against his chest. "I know it hasn't been an easy trip for you."

At that moment, I'd have followed him to the darkest depths of Tartarus (again), or the furthest reaches of the Umbra, or the northernmost of the northernmost lands. "I'm so glad I came," I replied with perfect sincerity. "There's a — a raw beauty to this place, isn't there?" It was entirely different from Athens, where mild showers of rain made the Parthenon gleam like a pearl on the Acropolis, and where a sweet, gentle breeze rustled the leaves of olive groves. "I — I think I like it."

"I hoped you would," he said simply. Then, a little too smugly, he added, "I _thought_ you would."

"You're a little too confi — "

A skidding sound forestalled my retort. Turning in unison, we saw Ynez and Zoe slipping and sliding towards us from the front of the house. (Apparently no one had told them about the side door.)

"We came out to see the aurora too," Ynez called. "It's gorgeous, isn't it?" Planting the butt of her spear firmly on the ice, she clung to it for stability and tipped her head back to admire the iridescent, peacock-like hues painted across the sky.

After a brief hesitation, Thoren invited, "Come stand with us. We're sheltered from the wind here."

After a brief hesitation of her own, Ynez asked, "We're not interrupting anything, are we?" But she began picking her way towards us without waiting for a response.

Trailing in her wake and eyeing us the way Hercules must have glared at Cerberus' two-headed brother, Zoe grumbled under her breath, "Of course we're interrupting something. With those two, we're _always_ interrupting something."

"Soror Zoe!" Ynez scolded, scandalized on our behalf, but Thoren only chuckled and pulled me closer.

Side by side with our cabalmates, as we had been on the road — on so _many_ roads for so many years now — the four of us savored this moment of tranquility perfected. Then the wind shifted to blow from the side, threatening to topple us like so many dominoes. Out of the tinkling, twinkling icicles materialized a pure white swan, larger than I'd ever seen it, and it hovered behind us and embraced us all, even Thoren, in the curve of its gigantic wings.

What I had told Thoren was entirely true. I was glad we had come here, here to the northern lands where the snow lay knee deep, waist deep, Ynez deep; where the jagged mountain peaks towered against the sky and reflected the splendor of the sunrise in the morning and the stars at night; where we'd met Thoren's family, witnessed all the joys and complexities of extended kin groups, and been welcomed into the tangle ourselves. I was glad the four of us had contended with blizzards and quarreled with one another and clashed with our hosts and generally accomplished our motto of "Growth through conflict." I was glad to be here, under the Northern Lights, shoulder to shoulder with my family who stood by me no matter what, even when I misjudged and turned an entire Sleeper town into one massive ice rink.

Perhaps _especially_ when I misjudged and turned an entire Sleeper town into one massive ice rink.


End file.
